Part of the reason for keeping costs low is that we have a fixed-size reticle, so SkyWater can use the same reticle frame over and over. There is a fixed size of user project area in caravel at 10mm^2. You can use the openframe version without the processor and you get 15mm^2 (for which even if you still want the processor, you could optimize it for your needs and still get effectively more user project area). 10mm^2 is actually a lot of chip area, unless you need lots of SRAM memory, in which case it rapidly becomes not enough area.