Empower's Tiny Silicon Capacitors Tackle AI's Growing Power Crisis

MILPITAS, CA – February 10, 2026 – As artificial intelligence processors reach unprecedented levels of performance, they are hitting a fundamental wall: power. The immense electrical currents required to fuel next-generation AI and high-performance computing (HPC) chips are straining traditional power delivery methods to their breaking point. In response, Silicon Valley’s Empower Semiconductor today unveiled a new portfolio of embedded silicon capacitors (ECAPs™) designed to solve this crisis from within the chip package itself.

The company announced three new ECAP products—the EC2005P, EC2025P, and EC2006P—offering high capacitance in minuscule footprints. These components are not destined for the motherboard but are engineered to be embedded directly into the processor's substrate, providing stable, on-demand power right where it is needed most. This move signals a critical shift in semiconductor design, where power delivery is no longer an afterthought but a deeply integrated part of the processor architecture.

The Unsung Heroes of AI Performance

For years, the focus of AI advancement has been on algorithmic improvements and increasing transistor counts. Yet, behind the scenes, a more fundamental challenge has been brewing. Advanced processors, with their extreme current densities and ultrafast switching speeds, create massive, instantaneous demands for power. When the power delivery network (PDN) cannot respond quickly enough, it results in a voltage droop—a momentary drop in voltage that can corrupt data, cause computational errors, or even crash the system.

Traditionally, engineers have relied on arrays of Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitors (MLCCs) placed on the circuit board near the processor to act as local energy reservoirs, smoothing out these power demands. However, as the distance between these external capacitors and the processor cores—often called the "last inch"—introduces parasitic inductance and resistance, their effectiveness plummets at the speeds required by modern AI chips.

Furthermore, MLCCs suffer from significant derating, losing a substantial portion of their effective capacitance under real-world DC voltage bias and temperature variations. This forces designers to overprovision, consuming valuable board space and increasing system cost. Empower's silicon capacitors are designed to overcome these limitations. Fabricated on silicon, they exhibit virtually no derating with voltage or temperature and boast superior stability over their lifetime. With capacitance densities reported to be over five times that of leading MLCCs and more than double that of competing silicon capacitor technologies, they offer a far more efficient solution in a much smaller package.

A Fundamental Shift to Embedded Power

Empower's new ECAP portfolio is a prime example of an industry-wide migration toward embedding passive components directly into the chip package. The new products offer capacitance ranging from 9.34μF to 36.8μF in packages as small as 2mm x 2mm, with profiles thin enough (under 50µm) to be integrated into the processor's interposer or substrate.

By placing the capacitor this close to the processor die, the parasitic inductance and resistance of the power path are dramatically reduced. Empower's ECAPs feature ultralow equivalent series inductance (ESL) and equivalent series resistance (ESR)—with some of the company's previous designs achieving sub-picohenry ESL values. This creates a low-impedance path for high-frequency current, enabling an almost instantaneous response to the processor's transient power demands and ensuring rock-solid voltage stability.

“Our customers are under intense pressure to deliver greater performance with tighter power margins,” said Steve Hertog, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Empower Semiconductor, in the announcement. “These new ECAPs are a proven and practical way to deploy higher capacitance density into a smaller footprint right at the package level of the AI processor.”

While Empower is a key innovator, other major component manufacturers like Murata are also developing advanced silicon capacitors, signaling a broad consensus that embedded power solutions are the future for high-performance computing. The competition is driving rapid advancements in density and performance, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the PDN bottleneck entirely.

Powering the Next-Generation Chiplet Ecosystem

The move to embedded capacitors is not happening in a vacuum. It is intrinsically linked to two other transformative trends in semiconductor design: chiplet architectures and vertical power delivery (VPD). Modern AI accelerators are increasingly built not as single monolithic dies but as complex systems of smaller, specialized chiplets connected within a single package. This modular approach allows for greater scalability and yield, but it also creates a nightmarish power delivery challenge, with dozens of independent power domains requiring clean, isolated, and responsive power.

Embedded capacitors like Empower's ECAPs are essential for providing this localized, high-performance decoupling for each chiplet, ensuring power integrity across the entire multi-die system. The company is leaning into this trend, with technical sessions planned for the upcoming Chiplet Summit and DesignCon events in February 2026. Topics like "Vertical Power Delivery for Chiplet Integration" and "Assuring SoC Power Integrity with Silicon Capacitors" highlight the synergy between their technology and the future of chip design.

This technology is a cornerstone of Empower's broader vision for vertical power delivery, exemplified by its Crescendo platform. VPD aims to move voltage regulators from the motherboard to directly underneath the processor package, delivering power vertically through the substrate. This architecture drastically shortens the power delivery path, slashing the I²R losses associated with traditional lateral power delivery by an estimated 5-20%. By integrating ECAPs into this vertical stack, the system can provide kilowatt-class power with unprecedented efficiency and speed, eliminating the need for bulky and inefficient decoupling capacitor banks on the motherboard.

Driving a More Efficient Data Center

The implications of this technological shift extend far beyond individual chip performance. Data centers, the backbone of the AI revolution, are facing an energy crisis. The voracious power consumption of AI workloads is driving up operational costs and straining electrical grids. Innovations that improve power efficiency are no longer just a competitive advantage; they are a necessity for sustainable growth.

By improving the efficiency of the power delivery network, advanced solutions like Empower's ECAPs contribute directly to reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) for data centers. Tighter voltage regulation allows processors to operate at lower nominal voltages without risking instability, saving significant power. Furthermore, eliminating I²R losses in the power path and shrinking the overall solution footprint translates to less wasted energy, reduced cooling requirements, and higher compute density per rack.

With the new ECAP portfolio now in mass production, designers of the next wave of AI and HPC platforms have a powerful new tool to address the critical power challenges that have threatened to stall progress. By solving the power problem at the most fundamental level, these tiny silicon components are set to play an outsized role in enabling the next decade of computational advancement.