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Today we have quad core socs for $4 retail. Your estimates are off. Cost per wafer is $5k for orders of 10k at 14nm.

Profits of a fab always hover around 30 percents.

When poking around for Allwinner H3 docs, I was getting quoted $1.50ea when ordering 100 or more of the H3 SOC, so quad cores can be had for that. It is kinda disconcerting to see how far SOCs have fallen in price.

How is it disconcerting? Lower prices are good for the consumer!

If lower prices mean that the market moves to more close and less documented platforms, then I'll stick to my old €50 CPU. The issue here are the hidden strings attached to that price fall.

Again, exactly this. Mediatek was Cheap and Cheerful. Way too good to be true to be honest. It was basically eating into Qualcommm lower to mid end market. ( Lucky Qualcomm has it modem integration )Then there comes Allwinner. I have no idea how money/ profits are being made at these sort of price level.

There has to be trade off somewhere.

The H3 is using an older 40nm process and is small in footprint, with no custom IP. Nothing really too exciting going on there, an 8 year old process is going to be cheap to use compared to a modern 14nm process.

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