Nvidia's move to 800-volt direct-current power in racks drawing a megawatt each, starting in 2027, is rewiring what sits between the wall and the accelerator. The chip companies that build those conversion stages all reported in the last three weeks of the quarter, and with one exception they reported accelerating revenue and expanding margins. The shares went the other way.

The first thing to retire is the idea that this was a group pullback. Over the 30 sessions to 7 August the six names spanned 22 percentage points, from Monolithic Power up 6.5% to Vicor down 15.9%. Two names carried the decline, and neither fell for reasons connected to power-delivery content.

What actually fell

ON Semiconductor, a Phoenix maker of silicon-carbide and silicon power devices and image sensors sold mostly into cars, dropped 23.7% in a single session on 26 June after announcing an all-stock bid for Synaptics; TD Securities downgraded the shares on dilution and integration risk, on a day that was also a broad chipmaker selloff. Vicor, an Andover, Massachusetts builder of modular direct-current converters and vertical power modules, gave back part of a 381% twelve-month run after its 21 July print.

Vicor is the one name where the business supports the de-rating. Revenue of $143.4m was up 26.9% sequentially but only 1.6% year over year, gross margin fell to 58.0% from 65.3%, and operating income dropped 23% — though the prior-year quarter included a $45m patent-litigation settlement that flatters the comparison. Against that, one-year backlog rose to $379.7m, up 145% year over year, and management raised long-term targets to $2.5bn of revenue at 70% gross margin. At 64.4x forward earnings and 75x trailing enterprise value to EBITDA, it is the most expensive member of the group on every measure — the verdict here is a justified de-rating, on evidence that remains inconclusive about the underlying franchise.

What did not

Texas Instruments, the Dallas analog and embedded-processor maker that owns its own 300-millimetre fabs, grew revenue 22.8% to $5.46bn with gross margin at 61.4%, 550 basis points off the Q4 2025 trough, and operating margin at 42.3% against 35.1%. Data-centre revenue doubled year over year; industrial rose 30%. Trailing free cash flow reached $6.5bn against $1.8bn a year earlier. The shares fell 3.4% on 23 July anyway, on caution about the pace of the industrial and automotive recovery, and despite beating on earnings at $2.14 against $1.92 expected. The drag investors keep pointing at — $2.2bn to $2.4bn of depreciation in 2026, still rising in 2027 — is real but already in the reported margin.

Monolithic Power, a Kirkland, Washington designer of direct-current-to-direct-current power chips and modules, is the purest expression of the theme. Enterprise data revenue reached $380.6m, up 164% year over year, and the company lifted its 2026 growth floor for that business from 85% to 130%. Management put central-processor power share above 30%, said 48-volt vertical modules are shipping to multiple customers and 800-volt alternating-to-direct-current parts are sampling on its own silicon carbide. The 2024 episode in which it was said to have lost Blackwell socket allocation to Renesas and Infineon has not shown up in the numbers.

Microchip, the Chandler, Arizona microcontroller and mixed-signal supplier, grew 38% with gross margin at 63.2% from 53.6% and operating margin at 22.7% from 3.0%, on the strongest bookings in four years — then explicitly told investors not to extrapolate the margin, because the guide carries lumpy licensing revenue and foundry cost increases still to come. Analog Devices, the Wilmington, Massachusetts precision-analog franchise, grew 37.2% with operating margin at 38.1% against 25.7%, its fourth straight quarter of acceleration, and has not yet printed inside this window — fiscal third-quarter results are due 19 August.

The re-rating that ran the wrong way

Every forward multiple in the group is lower than it was three months ago: Monolithic Power roughly 70x to 51.6x, Vicor 99x to 64.4x, Texas Instruments 38x to 33.7x, Analog Devices 36x to 31.4x. Microchip sits at 26.5x forward against a meaningless 117x trailing on trough earnings; ON at 25.4x forward with a 5.6% trailing free-cash-flow yield is the cheapest on price-to-gross-profit. Estimates rose faster than prices. The business contradicts the tape at Texas Instruments, Monolithic Power and ON; it confirms the tape at Microchip and Analog Devices, which held up.

One caution on the grouping itself. This is three businesses, not one: AI power-delivery content at Monolithic Power and Vicor, a broad analog and microcontroller cyclical recovery at Texas Instruments, Analog Devices and Microchip, and a silicon-carbide automotive turnaround at ON, where cars remain roughly 70% of demand and data centre is a bolt-on — even with content per rack guided from about $15,000 today to $115,000 at maturity. Five of the six are named participants in Nvidia's 800-volt architecture, but so are Infineon and Renesas. Participation is not share.

The setup

Where it stands — Five of six reported accelerating revenue and wider margins into July while forward multiples compressed; only Vicor's margins went backwards. Would confirm — Analog Devices printing near its $3.9bn guide with operating margin around 39% on 19 August. Would invalidate — Monolithic Power's enterprise data revenue growing below the raised 130% full-year floor, or Microchip's distributor inventory rising back above 25 days. Watch next — Analog Devices fiscal third-quarter results, Wednesday 19 August 2026. Valuation — Group forward price-to-earnings spans 25.4x (ON) to 64.4x (Vicor), each below the same name's May 2026 reading.