Went to a Micro Center today to get an SD card and ended up with a flyer.
They are a chain store that mostly sell computers, cables type of stuff. Lately they have tried to get into DIY stuff as well.
On the flyer I received they now sell an inland Uno, inland Pro Mini Board and an inland Mega 2560.
Never heard of inland before.
Only $5.99 for an Uno!
http://www.microcenter.com/product/431997/Uno_R3_MainBoard
Well - that looks like a clone - and only seeing the front side doesn't help - but if there aren't any counterfeit issues on the back-side - then yeah; a clone board for $6.00 as a loss-leader to get you in the store seems reasonable.
I have a couple of these. They seem to be kosher, as far as their labeling: they don't claim to be genuine, or use the logo or trade name. They also work like I'd expect.
At six USD each, I can hardly not buy them. I especially like to use them for unfinished projects that might not be kind to the processor board. Based on the prices at the local electronics outlet, I can even make a small profit harvesting the through-hole components.
Mega2560 for $9.99 USD, Leonardo for $7.99. All sorts of good stuff there. I have found them to be high quality.
Someone must be buying massive quantities.
1000 pieces of Atmega2560 are $10.45 each.
So how many do you need to buy to get the processor and a whole assembled board for less than that?
Just seems fishy.
Well the ATmega2560 is $3.80 when you buy them 10 at a time with free shipping from Aliexpress. I suppose you could buy and flip them on eBay for $5 to $6 each, it looks like bunches of them are available. The chip is probably a bit complex to make counterfeits, so perhaps Mouser and Digikey are just for a different market segment. A commercial operation making expensive custom equipment in America or Europe is not going to dink around like a hobbyist on eBay or Aliexpress, they are just going to go for the service and support of Mouser or Digikey.
They don't but by 100 or 1000 but by 100 000 or more dirrectly to Atmel.
With special delivery fpackaging price can be below 1€.