Comment Re:radio amateurs are infinitesimally small market (Score 1) 51
I don't think there's an open source FPGA design can bring much margin for improvement in pricing.
Keep in mind is that the FPGA manufacturers already have a type of competition: beyond a certain point, it's cheaper to roll out your own ASIC.
This already constrains the volume and price on their low end offerings.
You're also being quite naive about competition between "cheap" manufacturers, when applied to semiconductors.
First challenge is that lowest cost/transistor is provided by relatively modern processes (eg, 32-22 nm) and your fab options are few and the same as Xilinx/Altera's: TSMC, Samsung or GF.
Second challenge is that it takes a considerable ammount of effort/time/money to move a design between different manufacturers (and the more optimized, the worse).