Atomic Layer Deposition Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing has cooled since its 2019 peak. 207 families that year against 195 in 2017 and a midpoint of 169 in 2022 — the growth phase for this exact claim space is behind it, not ahead.
- Momentum is draining from the largest holders fastest. Lam Research, Applied Materials, ASM IP, Micron and TSMC all show sharp year-on-year declines in the latest filing year, several down to zero.
- The US dominates where these applications are filed. 2,382 records sit at the USPTO against 508 at WIPO and 364 at the EPO — enforcement leverage concentrates in one jurisdiction more than the technology itself does.
What this patent landscape covers
This dataset tracks 3,909 patent families filed between 2017 and 2026 that combine atomic layer deposition or atomic layer etching claims with process-level detail — self-limiting reaction chemistry, purge time, conformality, high-k dielectric formation or nucleation delay — under IPC classes covering surface coating (C23C16), semiconductor devices (H01L21) and related etching processes (C23C28). It is a process-claims corpus, not a device corpus: the search string filters specifically for records that describe how a film is deposited, not just that a device contains one.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any trend line are undercounts of eventual filing volume. Read the recent-year drop as a floor, not a final answer — but the multi-year decline from the 2019 peak through 2022 and beyond is real and not an artefact of the lag.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A peak in 2019, then a plateau and decline
Filings ran at 195 in 2017, rose to a peak of 207 in 2019, then settled near 169 by the 2022 midpoint. The shape is consistent with a technology whose core process claims were staked out early in this window rather than one still building toward a peak.
Coating and semiconductor-device classes dominate
C23C (coating and surface deposition) and H01L (semiconductor devices) each cover roughly two-thirds of records, with H10P, H10D and C07F organo-metallic precursor claims forming a substantial secondary tier. H10B memory-device manufacture and H01J electron-tube claims are present but thinner, marking them as adjacent rather than core to this filing population.
Go deeper on Atomic Layer Deposition with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about atomic layer deposition and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
High-k dielectric layer, fabricating method thereof and multi-function equipment implementing such fabricating method
The invention discloses a high-k dielectric layer, a fabricating method thereof and a multi-function equipment implementing such fabricating method. The high-k dielectric layer includes M atomic-layer-deposited films formed in sequence on a material layer of a semiconductor device, where M is an integer larger than 1. Each atomic-layer-deposited film is formed of an oxide by an ALD process, and N of the M films are bombarded by a non-reactive gas plasma during or after the ALD cycles.Filed by CHEN, MIIN-JANG; published 2019-03-21 as US20190088467A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6203613B1 | Atomic layer deposition with nitrate containing precursors | 1,666 |
| 2 | US6534395B2 | Method of forming graded thin films using alternating pulses of vapor phase reactants | 1,323 |
| 3 | US20010041250A1 | Graded thin films | 985 |
| 4 | US20020076507A1 | Process sequence for atomic layer deposition | 917 |
| 5 | US20020098627A1 | Surface preparation prior to deposition | 910 |
| 6 | US6420279B1 | Methods of using atomic layer deposition to deposit a high dielectric constant material on a substrate | 897 |
| 7 | US20050271813A1 | Apparatuses and methods for atomic layer deposition of hafnium-containing high-k dielectric materials | 867 |
| 8 | US20070119370A1 | Apparatus and process for plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition | 832 |
| 9 | US6428859B1 | Sequential method for depositing a film by modulated ion-induced atomic layer deposition (MII-ALD) | 827 |
| 10 | US20060019033A1 | Plasma treatment of hafnium-containing materials | 807 |
Citation counts inside this corpus skew toward older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations; treat the ranking as a map of influence on later claim drafting, not as a list of the most commercially significant patents active today.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about where this field stands
Three readings of the same corpus, each pointing at a decision a reader might need to make about where to file or who to watch.
The growth phase has already happened
Filings peaked in 2019 and had eased to 169 by 2022's midpoint, well below the earlier run rate. New entrants filing broad ALD process claims now are filing into a corpus that has already thinned, not one still expanding.
The biggest filers are pulling back hardest
Lam Research, Applied Materials, ASM IP, Micron and TSMC all show steep or total year-on-year declines in the most recent filing year. That is consistent with claim space that these firms consider substantially staked out already, though the lag on recent-year data means some of the drop will fill in.
Enforcement risk concentrates in the US filing office
Nearly two-thirds of records list the United States as a receiving office, well ahead of the PCT route and Europe. A freedom-to-operate check that stops at the USPTO will miss real but smaller exposure at WIPO, EPO, Taiwan, Singapore and China.
Precursor chemistry is a distinct, smaller claim layer
C07F organo-metallic and non-carbon compound claims sit at 345 records, well below the core C23C/H01L density. That gap suggests precursor-chemistry claims are less crowded than the process claims built around them, though still a meaningful body of prior art to clear.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to atomic layer deposition, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the activity has gone quiet
The corpus is led by the process-equipment majors, but the latest-year momentum figures show most of them stepping back rather than accelerating.
Equipment makers still lead but are slowing
Lam Research and Applied Materials carry the largest recent-year counts among the majors tracked here, at 2 and 1 respectively in the latest year — both down sharply from the year before, which reads as a mature claim position rather than retreat from the technology itself.
Device makers have gone quiet in the most recent window
Micron and TSMC both show zero filings in the latest tracked year, a full reversal from prior activity. Given the publication lag, some of this will resolve upward, but the direction across multiple large device makers at once is a real signal.
ASM's filing entities show a full-stop in the latest year
ASM IP Holding drops to zero in the latest year after a prior filing base, while a related ASM entity shows separate, smaller activity. Co-assignee patterns elsewhere in the corpus, including a Tokyo Electron plus individual-inventor pairing at 17 shared filings, show how some of this activity clusters around specific inventor-company pairs rather than spreading evenly.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Lam Research Corporation | 2 | -67% |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 1 | -88% |
| ASM IP Holding B.V. | 0 | -100% |
| Micron Technology, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) | 0 | -100% |
| ASM International N.V. | 0 | — |
| Tokyo Electron Limited | 0 | -100% |
| Versum Materials US, LLC | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The trend and assignee data point to a field with its core claims largely staked out; the open questions are about the thinner adjacent layers and about jurisdictions outside the US.
Map freedom-to-operate beyond the US filing office
With over a third of records filed outside the United States, a clearance search limited to USPTO records will understate real exposure, particularly in WIPO, EPO and Taiwan filings.
Explore jurisdictional coverageWatch whether the pullback among majors is durable
Several large assignees show year-on-year declines approaching or at 100%, but the publication lag on the most recent year means some of this will revise upward once later filings publish.
Track assignee momentumTest claim strength in the thinner precursor-chemistry layer
Organo-metallic precursor claims sit well below the density of the core process claims, which may leave more room for a defensible position than the crowded C23C/H01L space allows.
Review precursor chemistry claimsCommon questions about ALD patents
The corpus is led by the major deposition equipment and device makers, including Lam Research, Applied Materials, ASM IP Holding, Micron and TSMC, based on family counts across 2017-2026. However, several of these same assignees show sharp year-on-year declines in the most recent filing year, some down to zero, so current filing leadership does not track cleanly with historical filing volume. Anyone assessing 'who leads' should look at both the cumulative count and the recent-year momentum, since they tell different stories.
No, not by this dataset. Filings ran at 195 in 2017, peaked at 207 in 2019, and had fallen to 169 by the 2022 midpoint, with further declines visible into the most recent tracked years. Publication lag of roughly 18 months means the very latest year is undercounted, but the multi-year decline from the 2019 peak predates that lag and is a genuine slowdown in new process-claim filing.
It claims a high-k dielectric layer built from multiple sequential atomic-layer-deposited oxide films, where a subset of those films is treated with non-reactive gas plasma bombardment during or after the ALD cycling. The claim is specific to multi-film stacks with this bombardment step, not to ALD-formed high-k dielectrics generally. Anyone depositing a single high-k film without the plasma bombardment sequence, or without the multi-film graded structure, is working outside its core claim scope, though a full freedom-to-operate read requires checking the granted claim language directly.
The thinner IPC layers in this corpus — organo-metallic precursor chemistry under C07F, memory-device-specific ALD under H10B, and electron-tube applications under H01J — carry meaningfully less claim density than the core C23C coating and H01L semiconductor-device classes. That relative thinness, combined with several major assignees pulling back on new filings, points toward precursor-delivery methods and etching-selectivity control as areas with more room for a defensible first claim than the crowded core process space.
The United States is by far the largest receiving office in this corpus at 2,382 records, ahead of the WIPO PCT route at 508 and the European Patent Office at 364. Singapore, Taiwan and China each carry over 100 records, which matters given how much ALD equipment and wafer fabrication activity sits in those markets. A clearance or enforcement strategy built only around US filings will miss real, if smaller, exposure in these secondary jurisdictions.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.