The IoT (internet of things) will present such a huge variety of applications that chip designers will face a daunting challenge. On the one hand, the components and software they use will need to be as standardized and tightly integrated as possible to hit the ultra-low price points required to enable billions of end-points. On the other, different use cases will require different combinations of functions, demanding flexible and easily customizable platforms. Addressing that dangerous dichotomy may be the biggest justification for Marvell’s radical new approach to system-on-chip (SoC) design, MoChi. A modular chip concept, it supports the first ‘virtual SoC’, the firm boasts, and while it has initially sampled MoChi products targeted at midrange embedded products like storage processors,…