With the definition of RVA23, there is a baseline for new SOC which is both interesting on the Desktop (vector unit for multimedia) and on the server (Virtualization). Certain Distributions have already announces, that RVA23 will be the minimum requirement in the future.
I see that StarFive has the Dubhe-83 core which is RVA23 compliant. Will there be a SBC with a SOC using the Dubhe-83 core as a successor to the Vision Five 2?
The last response about the roadmap (less than two months ago) was this.
My interpretation would be that yes there will be a new JH8XXX SoC (and SBC’s based around that SoC), but only when there are enough large customers in their finical books with preorders to make it economically viable. They need to spend about a million to spin a new design to silicon in a fab, if there is a major design flaw that could mean a respin at the same cost again. To avoid a costly respin, one time programmable chicken bits are used (A chicken bit, is a bit on a chip that can be used by the designer to disable one of the features of the chip if it proves faulty or negatively impacts performance).
The other side of the equation is time, fabs are busy and booking a slot to have your silicon produced can be expensive in terms of time and money. It can easily take two years from wanting a new SoC to holding a new prototype from a fab in your hand. Companies can pay a lot more to skip some of the queue at the fabs, but that means they have to sell their SoC’s at a much higher price point.
And the last part of why so little information is publically available directly about future products is the Osborne effect. If there was a new SoC available next month, it would have began its journey at least 2-3 years ago, probably even longer. Announcing it before it is ready to ship would kill almost all sales of products based around the JH7110.
For me, the definition of RVA23 and Ubuntus declaration to only support RVA23 starting from Ubuntu 25.10 tells me that RVA23 is the future and therefore is my personal Osborne effect.
Currently I don’t see good reasons to order another SBC from any vendor just to play around with the ecosystem, if it doesn’t support RVA23. I use Debian and not Ubuntu, but I believe RVA23 will bring major improvements in terms of speed and general usability (GPU drivers remain a problem).
But I understand that they probably don’t want to risk sharp decline in sales if they announce a successor.