WSAL18001 – Jetson Xavier NX/en

Documentation notice: This technical documentation was independently rewritten from an archived supplier source. Check technical details and commands against the product version and manufacturer documentation before use.

Summary

A concise technical reference for the NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX module and its developer kit: specifications, system programming via SDK Manager on Ubuntu 18.04, booting from SSD, SDK installation (CUDA, cuDNN, TensorRT), Linux commands, I2C/GPIO control, and frequently asked questions.

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Technical overview

Module: NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX SOM delivering up to 21 TOPS of accelerated compute for edge AI workloads.
GPU: Maxwell architecture with 384 CUDA cores; specified as 48 TFLOPS cores.
CPU: 6-core ARMv8.2 64-bit processor (Carmel) with 6 MB L2 + 4 MB L3 cache.
Memory: 8 GB or 16 GB LPDDR4x, 128-bit wide, ~59.7 GB/s bandwidth.
Storage: 16 GB eMMC 5.1 flash plus M.2 M-key NVMe SSD interface.
Video encoding: 2× 4K@60, 4× 4K@30 HEVC, 10× 1080p@60 HEVC, 22× 1080p@30 HEVC.
Video decoding: 2× 8K@30, 6× 4K@60 HEVC, 12× 4K@30 HEVC, 22× 1080p@60 HEVC, 44× 1080p@30 HEVC.
Cameras: up to 6 physical cameras, up to 24 via virtual channels; MIPI CSI-2D-PHY 1.2 at up to 30 Gbps.
Networking: 10/100/1000Base-T Ethernet; Wi-Fi requires an external chip.
Dev-kit connectors: 40-pin GPIO header, micro-USB (data), gigabit Ethernet, 4× USB 3.0, HDMI, DisplayPort, DC power input (12–21 V), 2× MIPI CSI camera ports, fan header.
System programming: host environment is Ubuntu 18.04 (or VM); about 100 GB free disk space required. SDK Manager is installed from a .deb file.
Recovery mode: short-circuit the FC REC and GND pins on the module, connect DC power, then connect the board's micro-USB data port to the Ubuntu host with a data cable.
Programming steps: launch SDK Manager, log in, select board type 'Jetson Xavier NX', choose the latest supported JetPack version, check only 'Jetson OS', click Continue and wait for completion.
From JetPack 4.6.1 a preconfig window appears: choose either 'runtime' (manual configuration after boot) or 'preconfig' (username/password can be predefined).
Boot from SSD: connect the SSD, identify the device with 'ls /dev/nvme*', format with 'sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1', edit /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf changing LABEL to NX and root to nvme0n1, copy the system with 'sudo cp -ax / /mnt', reboot, and verify with 'df -h'.
SDK contents: JetPack includes the system image, libraries, APIs, developer tools, examples, and documentation. Uninstalled components include TensorRT, cuDNN, CUDA, Multimedia API, Computer Vision (VPI/OpenCV/VisionWorks2), and Developer Tools.
I2C usage: install the 'i2c-tools' package ('apt-get install -y i2c-tools'), query devices with 'sudo i2cdetect -y -r -a 0', read/write registers with i2cget/i2cset (example address 0x68, register 0x90).

Commands and examples – verify before use:

sudo apt install ./sdkmanager_[version]-[build#]_amd64.deb
ls /dev/nvme*
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1
sudo vi /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1 /mnt
sudo cp -ax / /mnt
sudo umount /mnt/
sudo reboot
df -h
sudo i2cdetect -y -r -a 0
sudo i2cdump -y 0 0x68
sudo i2cset -y 0 0x68 0x90 0x55
sudo i2cget -y 0 0x68 0x90

Notes and version constraints

The source text contains placeholders such as {{{name3}}} and incomplete sections; some details may be incomplete.
Programming requires a registered NVIDIA developer account; without one, the SDK Manager cannot be fully used.
The pre-flashed image does not include the SDK; CUDA and other plug-ins must be downloaded and installed manually.
When using an official kit, a different board type must be selected in the SDK Manager.
The 'UNKNOWN' label in jtop occurs because the board lacks a corresponding EEPROM ID; this does not affect usage.
The CAN bus only works after soldering the pin headers on the carrier board.

Source and revision record

Jetson Xavier NX - Waveshare Wiki
Source revision: 104406
Captured: 2026-09-01T02:54:27+00:00
SHA-256: 1c30cc459d34115d26a92bdf4bfb0082d6a14f9d40df1dc5fba722ca31dee4ba