The SiFive U74 quad-core RISC-V SoC is used in the StarFive VisionFive 2 smartphone, which was released at the end of the summer. The speed of this quad-core 64-bit RISC-V processor, which is identical to the original VisionFive but now has a quad-core design rather than a dual-core, is up to 1.5GHz. The VisionFive 2 has twin Gigabit Ethernet, microSD storage remains the default interface, and an eMMC connector is also accessible. Versions with LPDDR4 system memory ranging from 2GB to 8GB are also available.
The price for this RISC-V development board with a 4GB Dual Gigabit LAN version is now $76 or $96 for the 8GB RAM version, and pre-orders are currently open. Shipments are anticipated to start in December, however some additional VisionFive 2 models may not arrive until the first several months of 2023.
Offering a quad-core 64-bit RISC-V 1.5GHz SoC, Imagination graphics and up to 8GB of RAM for under $100, it finally offers a more attractive price point for Linux enthusiasts looking for RISC-V. The SiFive dev board and these VisionFive 2 specs are much more desktop ready than other cheap RISC-V dev boards made in China so far.
Once VisionFive 2 begins to arrive in large quantities, it will be interesting to see how much the software ecosystem and developer community can expand.
Canonical programmers are already trying to make sure Ubuntu Linux is prepared, and StarFive VisionFive 2 is attempting to support several Linux distributions out of the box.
Heinrich Schuchardt, a Canonical engineer, noted that his VisionFive 2 was already running Ubuntu RISC-V using the vendor’s kernel build, and Canonical has confirmed that I am currently working on an Ubuntu kernel build for my board computer.