It is not designed as a general purpose microchip. It is designed as a microcontroller type microchip. Memory is expansive, because Si chip area is expansive.

It is not designed as a general purpose microchip. It is designed as a microcontroller type microchip. Memory is expansive, because Si chip area is expansive. The chip is designed for cheap special purpose applications. For that it fulfills the function. Btw. you can run Linux on it, you just need to do something and can't simply put the latest and greatest Ubuntu distribution on it.