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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/ceramic-metallization-by-thick-film-and-plating-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Ceramic SubstratesCeramic metallization patents: thick film and plating routes mapped by assignee, geography and technology class
- 28.5% of all 1,983 records sit with the five leading assignees, with a long tail of single- and low-filing entrants behind them.
- Filings fell 63% from 2021 to 2024 (35 to 13), the steepest sustained pull-back in the trend window, though 2025-26 counts are still filling in.
- H05K printed circuits dominate at 37.7% of records, ahead of coating deposition (C23C, 28.0%) and semiconductor devices (H01L, 20.7%).
1,983
Published Records
29%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-63%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (35 records) with 2024 (13) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 1,983 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
Ceramic metallization is the set of processes that turn an insulating ceramic body into a surface that can carry a solder joint, a wire bond or a hermetic seal. The two dominant routes in this dataset are thick-film metallization — screen-printed molybdenum-manganese or silver pastes fired onto the ceramic — and electroless or electrolytic plating, typically a nickel barrier layer applied after an activation or roughening step. Both routes chase the same three failure modes: adhesion strength at the ceramic interface, glass migration through the metal layer, and hermetic-seal integrity over thermal cycling.
The 1,983 records in scope span 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, drawn from filings that explicitly combine a metallization or plating method with one of these reliability concerns. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, counts for the most recent one to two years understate actual filing activity and should be read as provisional.
Filing activity and technology mix, 2015–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Ceramic Metallization by Thick Film and Plating covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,983-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings peaked at 49 in 2019 and held near that level before falling from 35 in 2021 to 13 in 2024, a 63% drop over three years. The 2025-26 figures are not yet complete because of publication lag, so the apparent tail-off past 2024 should not be read as continued decline.
IPC subclass distribution
H05K (printed circuits and assemblies) leads at 37.7% of the 1,983 records, followed by C23C (coating and surface deposition) at 28.0% and H01L (semiconductor devices) at 20.7%. C25D (electroplating and electroforming) and B32B (layered products) sit further down at 10.8% and 8.0%. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares sum to well over 100% and should not be added together.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,983 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Ceramic Metallization by Thick Film and Plating covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Representative filing and most-cited prior art
Representative record
Electroless plating solution for providing solar cell electrode
E-CHEM ENTERPRISE CORP.
An electroless nickel plating solution for solar cell electrodes patterned with SiNx and Si, built from a nickel ion, a reducing agent, two chelating agents and water. The formulation is described as achieving high selectivity between Si and SiNx while remaining harmless to the aluminium-based layer beneath it.Filed by E-CHEM ENTERPRISE CORP., published 2011-08-11 as US20110192316A1.
Most-cited records in this corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5935143A | Ultrasonic knife | 638 |
| 2 | US5648125A | Electroless plating process for the manufacture of printed circuit boards | 442 |
| 3 | US5695510A | Ultrasonic knife | 419 |
| 4 | US5155336A | Rapid thermal heating apparatus and method | 380 |
| 5 | US20020006687A1 | Integrated IC chip package for electronic image sensor die | 315 |
| 6 | US6396148B1 | Electroless metal connection structures and methods | 301 |
| 7 | US20200012081A1 | Camera module, method of manufacturing the same, and electronic apparatus | 285 |
| 8 | US6616967B1 | Method to achieve continuous hydrogen saturation in sparingly used electroless nickel plating process | 275 |
| 9 | US5478462A | Process for forming polyimide-metal laminates | 270 |
| 10 | US4297607A | Sealed, matched piezoelectric transducer | 246 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations inside this searched corpus — treat them as a signal of influence on subsequent filers, not as a ranking of present-day importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Ceramic Metallization by Thick Film and Plating covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-outs from the concentration, class and geography data, framed for where a team should and shouldn't spend claim-drafting effort.
Concentration
28.5% / 5 assignees
of 1,983 records
The top of the field is dense, the rest is thin
The five leading assignees hold 566 of 1,983 records between them, but the tenth-ranked assignee sits at only 25 records against a leader at 331. That gap means most of the ranked field is defending narrow, specific claim positions rather than broad platform patents.
Ranking covers 100 assignees, counted in records.
Filing momentum
-63%, 2021→2024
35 to 13 filings
Volume has pulled back from its 2019 peak
After peaking at 49 filings in 2019, the corpus shows a sustained decline through the last complete filing year. This reads as consolidation around established routes rather than continued invention pressure, though 2025-26 figures are still incomplete.
2024 is the most recent year treated as complete.
Technology mix
37.7% H05K
of 1,983 records
Circuit assembly claims outweigh pure ceramics claims
H05K (printed circuits and assemblies) carries more records than C04B (ceramics, cement and refractories) at 5.2%, meaning most of the activity in this dataset is about integrating metallized ceramic into a larger circuit or package, not about ceramic material chemistry itself.
Records can carry multiple IPC classes; shares do not sum to 100%.
Geography
767 US filings
of the receiving-office totals
US and EPO offices carry the bulk of filings
The United States (767) and EPO (436) together outpace Japan (405), with WIPO PCT filings at 102. A filer clearing freedom-to-operate should treat US and European coverage as the baseline check, not an afterthought.
Germany (49) and Austria (38) are smaller but present national-phase pools.
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to ceramic metallization by thick film and plating, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Ceramic Metallization by Thick Film and Plating covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked assignees cluster around printed-circuit integration and coating deposition; recent-year momentum has flattened across the leaders shown in this dataset, consistent with the broader 2021-2024 pull-back.
Leader
331 records
leading assignee
One assignee holds a clear first position
The leading assignee's 331 records sit well above the fifth-place figure of 48, a gap wide enough to suggest a sustained, multi-generation filing programme rather than a single product push.
Compare against 25 records at tenth place.
Mid-field
48 vs 25
5th vs 10th place
The mid-field narrows quickly
Filing counts fall from 48 at fifth place to 25 at tenth, a steeper drop than the gap between first and fifth. Positions six through ten are contestable with a moderate, well-targeted filing programme.
Ranking spans 100 assignees total.
Collaboration
10 co-assignee pairs
identified
Co-filing is rare and concentrated
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, and the strongest of them links a parent electronics group to its own subsidiary rather than an external partner, suggesting most development here happens in-house.
Strongest pair recorded at 29 shared filings.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Ibiden Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Resonac Corporation | 0 | — |
| Atotech Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG | 0 | -100% |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
| Panasonic Holdings Corporation | 0 | — |
| Toray Industries, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Toshiba Tec Corporation | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Ceramic Metallization by Thick Film and Plating covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio benchmarking, or identifying a filing gap.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 331 of 1,983 records, any new filing in thick-film or plating metallization should start with a clearance search against that portfolio specifically, not the field average.
Run a clearance search in EurekaTrack the mid-field before it consolidates
The drop from 48 records at fifth place to 25 at tenth marks a contestable band. A monitoring watch on those assignees would catch new filings while positions are still open.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaValidate the white-space sub-areas with a fresh search
Surface roughening, glass migration barriers and plating uniformity control appear thin in this corpus relative to H05K and C23C volumes. Confirm with a targeted claim-language search before committing R&D time.
Explore white space in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Ceramic Metallization by Thick Film and Plating covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on ceramic metallization patents
Ceramic metallization is the process of applying a conductive metal layer to an insulating ceramic substrate so it can carry a solder joint, wire bond or hermetic seal. Two routes dominate: thick-film printing of a molybdenum-manganese or silver paste that is fired onto the ceramic, and electroless or electrolytic plating that builds a nickel barrier layer after a surface activation step. Both routes are patented heavily because small changes in adhesion strength, glass migration control or plating uniformity directly affect device reliability, which makes incremental process claims commercially valuable even when the underlying chemistry is well known.
The ranked assignee list in this dataset covers 100 companies counted by patent family, with the top five combining for 28.5% of all 1,983 records in scope. The leading assignee alone holds 331 records, well ahead of the fifth-place position at 48. The field then thins quickly: the tenth-ranked assignee holds only 25 records, indicating a small group of sustained filers ahead of a long tail of narrower or single-filing entrants.
Filings peaked at 49 in 2019 and then declined, falling from 35 in 2021 to 13 in 2024, a 63% drop over that three-year span. This is the most recent period that can be read as complete, because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, which means 2025 and 2026 counts are still filling in and should not yet be read as a continuation of the decline. Taken together, the trend suggests filing activity consolidated after 2019 rather than accelerating.
Printed circuits and assemblies (IPC class H05K) lead at 37.7% of the 1,983 records, ahead of coating and surface deposition (C23C) at 28.0% and semiconductor devices (H01L) at 20.7%. Electroplating and electroforming (C25D) and layered products (B32B) follow at 10.8% and 8.0% respectively, with core ceramics chemistry (C04B) comparatively small at 5.2%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these figures should be read individually against the 1,983-record total rather than summed.
Based on the class distribution, sub-areas tied to surface preparation and process control appear thinner than the dominant circuit-integration and coating clusters — surface roughening pre-treatment, glass-migration barrier design in fired thick film, and electroless plating uniformity control are examples worth checking. These are not guaranteed gaps; they are areas that carry fewer dedicated records relative to the volume in H05K and C23C, so a targeted prior-art search is the right next step before committing to a claim strategy there.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Ceramic Metallization by Thick Film and Plating covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.