Power conversion specialist Ferric has teamed with Marvell Technology to tackle one of the biggest bottlenecks facing AI and cloud infrastructure: efficient power delivery to increasingly hungry processors.

The partnership sees Ferric's miniaturized voltage regulators integrated directly into Marvell’s custom silicon platforms, with the pair promising significant performance gains and cost savings for hyperscale cloud operators.

Ferric's approach uses thin-film magnetic technology to build voltage regulators that are more than 10-times smaller than conventional solutions, allowing regulators to be placed directly inside processor packages.

By integrating the regulators, the pair contend the integration reduces the distance power must travel and minimizes energy losses in transmission, thereby improving efficiency and enabling higher power densities.

“Placing IVR under, near, or inside the package delivers greater performance and efficiency while giving cloud operators greater flexibility when it comes to developing or optimizing their infrastructure," Will Chu, SVP and GM of custom cloud solutions at Marvell, explained in a statement.

“Our collaboration provides a streamlined path for integrating Ferric IVRs into some of the most sophisticated and power-hungry processors ever made,” Ferric CEO Noah Sturcken added.

The Ferric-Marvell team-up comes amid broader industry recognition that with AI systems scaling, power delivery is becoming an increasingly important design consideration.

Marvell itself has increasingly looked into power delivery, notably through its introduction of Package Integrated Voltage Regulator (PIVR) power solutions.

Unveiled earlier this month, Marvell’s PIVR offering controls the flow of electricity to a semiconductor and reduces high voltages from power supplies and shortening the final low-voltage/high-current portion of the power delivery path to reduce transmission losses by up to 85 percent.