NVIDIA JetPack SDK is the most comprehensive solution for building AI applications. All Jetson modules and developer kits are supported by JetPack SDK.

JetPack SDK includes the latest Linux Driver Package (L4T) with Linux operating system and CUDA-X accelerated libraries and APIs for Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Accelerated Computing and Multimedia. It also includes samples, documentation, and developer tools for both host computer and developer kit, and supports higher level SDKs such as DeepStream for streaming video analytics and Isaac for robotics.

JetPack 4.5

JetPack 4.5 is the latest production release, supporting all Jetson modules

Key features include VPI 1.0, Docker 19.03, Security features including enhanced secure boot and support for full disk encryption, enhanced bootloader functionality and a new way of flashing Jetson devices using NFS.

See Highlights below under different sections for a summary of new features enabled with this release, and view the JetPack release notes for more details.

Installing JetPack

SD Card Image Method
SD Card Image Method
Jetson Nano Developer Kits

For Jetson Nano Developer Kit

Follow the steps at Getting Started with Jetson Nano Developer Kit.

For Jetson Nano 2GB Developer Kit:

Follow the steps at Getting Started with Jetson Nano 2GB Developer Kit.

Jetson Xavier NX Developer Kit

Follow the steps at Getting Started with Jetson Xavier NX Developer Kit.

 






NVIDIA SDK Manager method
For any Jetson Developer Kit

Follow the steps at Install Jetson Software with SDK Manager.

 

 




JetPack can also be installed or upgraded using a Debian package management tool on Jetson. We also host Debian packages for JetPack components for installing on host. Refer to the JetPack documentation for instructions.

More Resources

Key Features in JetPack

OS

NVIDIA L4T provides the bootloader, Linux kernel, necessary firmwares, NVIDIA drivers, sample filesystem, and more.

JetPack 4.5 includes L4T 32.5 with these highlights:

  • Secure boot enhanced for Jetson AGX Xavier and Jetson Xavier NX to extend encryption support to kernel, kernel-dtb and initrd.
  • Disk encryption supported to protect data at rest on Jetson AGX Xavier, Jetson Xavier NX and Jetson TX2.
  • Support for loading kernel, device tree and initrd from the root file system on USB drive or NVME for Jetson TX2, Jetson TX1 and Jetson Nano (for 4GB modules and developer kits). Refer to release notes for more details.
  • UBoot version updated to v2020.04 for Jetson TX2, Jetson TX1 and Jetson Nano
  • New way of flashing eMMC, SDCard, USB or NVME connected to Jetson using Network File System. Jetson AGX Xavier, Jetson Xavier NX and Jetson TX2 are supported in this release.
  • Boot firmware for all Jetson Nano developer kits updated to relocate boot firmware to integrated QSPI-NOR. Developer kits will use microSD Card solely for OS/app storage after this change.

All Jetson Nano Developer Kits will now show a warning screen if no microSD Card is inserted. It will attempt to boot from other supported media after showing this warning screen.

TensorRT

TensorRT is a high performance deep learning inference runtime for image classification, segmentation, and object detection neural networks. TensorRT is built on CUDA, NVIDIA’s parallel programming model, and enables you to optimize inference for all deep learning frameworks. It includes a deep learning inference optimizer and runtime that delivers low latency and high-throughput for deep learning inference applications.

JetPack 4.5 includes TensorRT 7.1.3

cuDNN

CUDA Deep Neural Network library provides high-performance primitives for deep learning frameworks. It provides highly tuned implementations for standard routines such as forward and backward convolution, pooling, normalization, and activation layers.

JetPack 4.5 includes cuDNN 8.0

CUDA

CUDA Toolkit provides a comprehensive development environment for C and C++ developers building GPU-accelerated applications. The toolkit includes a compiler for NVIDIA GPUs, math libraries, and tools for debugging and optimizing the performance of your applications.

JetPack 4.4.1 and JetPack 4.4 include CUDA 10.2 with these highlights:

  • 50% launch latency reduction for CUDA kernels resulting in improved GPU utilization and lower CPU utilization.

Multimedia API

The Jetson Multimedia API package provides low level APIs for flexible application development.

Camera application API: libargus offers a low-level frame-synchronous API for camera applications, with per frame camera parameter control, multiple (including synchronized) camera support, and EGL stream outputs. RAW output CSI cameras needing ISP can be used with either libargus or GStreamer plugin. In either case, the V4L2 media-controller sensor driver API is used.

Sensor driver API: V4L2 API enables video decode, encode, format conversion and scaling functionality. V4L2 for encode opens up many features like bit rate control, quality presets, low latency encode, temporal tradeoff, motion vector maps, and more.

JetPack 4.5 highlights:
  • V4l2 api extended to support interacting with CSI cameras.

Computer Vision

VisionWorks is a software development package for Computer Vision (CV) and image processing.

OpenCV is a leading open source library for computer vision, image processing and machine learning.

VPI (Vision Programing Interface)1, a software library that provides Computer Vision / Image Processing algorithms implemented on PVA2 (Programmable Vision Accelerator), GPU and CPU

JetPack 4.5 includes VPI 1.0 with these highlights:

  • First production release of VPI
  • New Algorithms
    • Pyramidal LK Optical Flow supported on CPU and GPU
  • YUV422 packed color support for VIC backend
  • Easier integration with OpenCV

JetPack 4.5 includes OpenCV 4.1.1

Jetpack 4.5 includes Visionworks 1.6

1PVA is available only on Jetson AGX Xavier series and Jetson Xavier NX

Developer Tools

CUDA Toolkit provides a comprehensive development environment for C and C++ developers building high-performance GPU-accelerated applications with CUDA libraries. The toolkit includes Nsight Eclipse Edition, debugging and profiling tools including Nsight Compute, and a toolchain for cross-compiling applications.

NVIDIA Nsight Systems is a low overhead system-wide profiling tool, providing the insights developers need to analyze and optimize software performance.

NVIDIA Nsight Graphics is a standalone application for debugging and profiling graphics applications.

JetPack 4.5 includes NVIDIA Nsight Systems 2020.5 with these highlights:

    • Nsight System CLI to collect profiling data without using GUI
    • Several GUI improvements
      • Improved selection highlighting
      • Improved support for high DPI displays
      • OpenGL GPU row moved next to CUDA GPU rows
      • Improved CUDA UVM coloring
      • Improved CUDA stream overview rendering
      • Improved event viewer search system
      • Improved event viewer highlight and/or zoom
      • Option to sort thread by utilization within selection
      • Keyboard hotkey info button

JetPack 4.5 includes NVIDIA Nsight Graphics 2020.5 with these highlights:

  • Support for new Vulkan Extensions
    • VK_KHR_buffer_device_address
    • VK_KHR_separate_depth_stencil_layouts
    • VK_KHR_timeline_semaphor
    • VK_KHR_deferred_host_operation
    • VK_KHR_pipeline_library
    • VK_EXT_tooling_info
  • Support for new OpenGL Extensions:
    • ARB_compute_variable_group_size
    • NV_representative_fragment_test
    • GL_NV_clip_space_w_scaling
  • Supports full frame debugging and profiling for the recently released Vulkan 1.2 specification
  • VK_KHR_ray_tracing support
  • VRS visualization in the Current Target View
  • Vulkan Dynamic Shader Editing
  • Enhanced Acceleration Structure Navigation Enhancements

Refer to release notes for more details.

Supported SDKs and Tools

PowerEstimator is a webapp that simplifies creation of custom power mode profiles and estimates Jetson module power consumption.

JetPack 4.5 supports PowerEstimator


Deepstream SDK is a complete analytics toolkit for AI-based multi-sensor processing and video and audio understanding.

JetPack 4.5 supports DeepStream 5.0 General Availability release


For a full list of samples and documentation, see the JetPack documentation.

For older versions of JetPack, please visit the JetPack Archive.