Onsemi reportedly in talks to buy AI power startup Ferric for nearly $1 billion

Onsemi is reportedly negotiating to acquire Ferric, a New York-based startup that makes power-management chips for AI hardware, in a deal valued at nearly $1 billion.

The talks were first reported by The Information on October 27, 2026. Coverage spread widely the following day. Onsemi has not confirmed the negotiations, so for now this is a deal in the rumor column, not the press release column.

The interesting part is the target. Ferric doesn’t build the flashy AI chips that get the headlines. It builds the plumbing that keeps those chips fed with steady power.

What Onsemi would actually be buying

Ferric specializes in integrated voltage regulators, or IVRs, along with thin-film magnetic inductor technology.

Ferric’s newest product is the Fe1767 Newport, a dual-sided 145 A IVR. The company says it cuts voltage droop by up to 57% compared with traditional solutions.

Voltage droop is the dip in voltage that happens when a chip suddenly demands more power. Less droop means steadier operation. For processors juggling enormous AI workloads, steady is the whole point.

Ferric claims a total addressable market of $10 billion for power management aimed at AI accelerators and related processors. That figure is the company’s own estimate, which is the kind of number startups tend to present with confidence and acquirers tend to examine with a calculator.

A small fundraise, a big price tag

Ferric was founded in 2010 and previously operated under the name Ferric Semiconductor. Its technology targets AI, data center, and automotive applications.

Across several funding rounds, the company raised approximately $41.8 million in total. That includes a $32.1 million Series C round in December 2024.

Do the rough math and the reported price looks striking. A company that raised approximately $41.8 million over its lifetime could fetch nearly $1 billion.

The structure of the deal remains uncertain. The reported terms may include payments tied to performance targets, sometimes called earnouts. If that holds, the headline number could depend on Ferric hitting certain milestones after the acquisition.

No rival bidders have been reported. The deal could be finalized soon, though nothing has been officially announced.

Why power is the new bottleneck

The broader backdrop is simple. AI hardware is hungry, and feeding it efficiently has become a real engineering problem.

The research notes that analog chipmakers are increasingly pursuing efficient power-management technology. The goal is to keep up with the power demands of cutting-edge AI accelerators and high-performance computing systems.

What this means for Onsemi and the chip industry

If the deal closes, Onsemi would gain proprietary integrated voltage-regulator technology aimed squarely at AI power delivery. That would give the company an in-house answer to one of the more pressing hardware challenges in high-performance computing.

There are clear risks to watch. Onsemi has not confirmed the talks, and deals in advanced negotiation can still fall apart. The valuation leans in part on Ferric’s own $10 billion market estimate, which has yet to be proven at scale.

The earnout question matters too. If a meaningful share of the price depends on future milestones, the true cost of the deal may not be known for some time.

Ferric’s Fe1767 Newport and its claimed droop reduction of up to 57% will need to hold up in real customer deployments.

For now, the key things to monitor are an official confirmation from Onsemi, the final deal structure, and whether any competing bidder emerges.