Corrosion-Resistant Coatings Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- Filing peaked in 2017 at 10 families and has not returned to that level since, with a single filing at the 2022 midpoint and none in the most recent year on record.
- 29 of 32 families sit in just two IPC subclasses C23C coating chemistry and H01J discharge-tube hardware — leaving deposition methods like spraying and electroplating at a single record each.
- The most-cited record dates to 2016 a smooth plasma-resistant coating claim cited 81 times, meaning the field's most influential prior art is also its oldest.
A narrow field built on early coating chemistry claims
Corrosion-resistant coatings for semiconductor equipment protect chamber components — electrodes, liners, showerheads — from erosion during plasma exposure, which is directly tied to particle generation and contamination control inside the tool. The patent record here is small and concentrated: 32 families published since 2015, almost all classified under coating chemistry (C23C) or discharge-tube hardware (H01J), with filing activity peaking in 2017 and declining since.
The most influential record in the set dates to 2016 and describes a smooth plasma-resistant coating; later filings extend it into multi-layer erosion protection and atomic layer deposition variants. Deposition methods outside the core coating-layer claims — spraying, electroplating — remain almost unclaimed, which is where the openings sit.
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Filing trends and technology composition
32 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 map a narrow, concentrated field built almost entirely on two IPC subclasses.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 and has not returned
Filings peaked at 10 in 2017, fell to a single filing at the 2022 midpoint, and show no filings in the most recent year on record. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the newest year is always undercounted, but the multi-year decline from the 2017 peak predates that lag effect and points to a genuinely quieter filing period rather than a reporting gap.
Coating chemistry and chamber hardware dominate the classification mix
C23C (coating and surface deposition) and H01J (electron and discharge tubes) each carry 29 of the 32 records, confirming this is fundamentally a coatings-on-chamber-hardware field. Layered products (B32B, 10) and semiconductor devices (H01L, 9) form a secondary tier, while spraying/atomising, electroplating and rare-earth compound chemistry each sit at a single record — evidence of how narrowly the claimed deposition methods and raw chemistries are represented relative to the coating layer claims themselves.
Shares are the percentage of the 32 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
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Try EurekaThe claims that anchor this field
Plasma resistant coating with tailorable coefficient of thermal expansion
An article comprises a body and at least one final plasma resistant coating layer on at least one surface of the body. The at least one final plasma resistant coating layer is a mixture of a ScF3 and an initial plasma resistant coating material selected from the group consisting of YF3, Y2O3, a compound of Y4Al2O9, a solid-solution of Y2O3-ZrO2, CaF2, MgF2, SrF2, AlF3, ErF3, LaF3, NdF3, ScF3, CeF4, ZrF4, and combinations thereof.Filed by Applied Materials, Inc. — the mixture-composition claim structure is the narrowest and hardest element to design around in this cluster.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20160042924A1 | Plasma generation chamber with smooth plasma resistant coating | 81 |
| 2 | US20180330923A1 | Multi-layer plasma erosion protection for chamber components | 44 |
| 3 | US20180337026A1 | Erosion resistant atomic layer deposition coatings | 37 |
| 4 | US20180240648A1 | Multi-layer plasma resistant coating by atomic layer deposition | 30 |
| 5 | US20170260616A1 | Plasma resistant coating with tailorable coefficient of thermal expansion | 27 |
| 6 | US20180135157A1 | Plasma resistant coating film and fabricating method thereof | 24 |
| 7 | US10745805B2 | Plasma resistant coating of porous body by atomic layer deposition | 12 |
| 8 | US10186400B2 | Multi-layer plasma resistant coating by atomic layer deposition | 12 |
| 9 | US9460898B2 | Plasma generation chamber with smooth plasma resistant coating | 10 |
| 10 | US10755900B2 | Multi-layer plasma erosion protection for chamber components | 9 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus; older records accumulate citations simply by being available longer, so treat this as a map of influence rather than a ranking of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern signals for chamber-component design
Reading the citation table and IPC spread together points to a field where the foundational chemistry claims are settled and the open ground has moved to deposition method and layer architecture.
Foundational art is also the oldest art
US20160042924A1, published in 2016, carries 81 citations — well ahead of the next four most-cited records in the set. That concentration means most later filings are building on, or designing around, a single early claim rather than starting from independent chemistry.
A field that has gone quiet since its peak
Filings peaked at 10 in 2017 and fell to 1 by the 2022 midpoint, with none recorded in the most recent year. Even allowing for publication lag understating the newest year, the multi-year decline from peak suggests the core chemistry claim space filled up early.
Two subclasses carry almost the entire field
Coating chemistry (C23C) and discharge-tube hardware (H01J) each account for 29 of 32 records, while spraying, electroplating and rare-earth compound chemistry each sit at a single record — a strong signal of where claim density is light.
Filing activity is heavily US-centric
The United States receives 25 of the 32 tracked filings, with Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan accounting for the remainder. That skew matters for freedom-to-operate work outside the US, where the enforceable footprint of this cluster is comparatively thin.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to corrosion-resistant coatings for semiconductor equipment, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the foundational claims
A small group of equipment and materials suppliers accounts for most of the tracked filings, and recent-year momentum across all of them is flat.
Applied Materials anchors the most-cited claim
The representative filing, US20170260616A1, and the top-cited record in the set both trace to Applied Materials, giving it the strongest position in the mixture-chemistry and smooth-coating claim space that later filings build against.
No assignee is filing in the most recent year
Every assignee in the recent-momentum tracking, from equipment majors to individual filers, shows zero filings in the latest year, with at least one showing a full year-on-year drop. That flatness is consistent with the field-wide decline from the 2017 peak rather than any single company pulling back.
A mix of equipment majors and single-filing entrants
The assignee ranking includes established chamber-component and equipment suppliers alongside at least one individual inventor filer, pointing to a field where the barrier to filing a narrow refinement claim is still low even as the core chemistry is well staked out.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Kometal Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Entegris, Inc. | 0 | — |
| GUNDA NILESH | 0 | — |
| Lam Research Corporation | 0 | — |
| Wonik QnC Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. (AMEC), Shanghai | 0 | — |
Where to take this research
The filing pattern points to a settled chemistry core and open ground in deposition method and layer architecture — the next step is checking both against your own component roadmap.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on mixture-composition claims
The ScF3-mixture claim structure in the representative filing is the narrowest and most defensible in the cluster. Confirm current legal status and claim scope before committing to a similar chemistry.
Check claim status in EurekaScope a deposition-method filing strategy
Spraying, electroplating and rare-earth precursor chemistry each carry a fraction of the filing density seen in coating-layer claims. Map your process against the thin subclasses before assuming the space is occupied.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack assignee momentum before the next filing cycle
Every tracked assignee shows zero filings in the latest year, which may reflect either a genuine lull or publication lag. Monitor the ranking for early signs of renewed activity.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions about corrosion-resistant coatings for semiconductor equipment
The core patent set covers plasma-resistant coating layers applied to chamber components, most heavily classified under C23C (coating and surface deposition) and H01J (electron and discharge tubes). The most-cited record, US20160042924A1, claims a plasma generation chamber with a smooth plasma-resistant coating and anchors much of the later filing activity. Later filings build on it with multi-layer erosion protection and atomic layer deposition variants, so a freedom-to-operate search in this space needs to check both the base coating-layer claims and the multi-layer and ALD refinements separately.
Filing peaked at 10 records in 2017 and dropped through the following years, reaching a single filing by the 2022 midpoint with none in the most recent year on record. Part of that recent drop is a reporting artefact: publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the newest years in any patent dataset are undercounted. But the multi-year decline from the 2017 peak is too long to be explained by lag alone, and more plausibly reflects claim space that was heavily staked out early, leaving fewer open positions for new entrants to file around.
Yttria (Y2O3) and related rare-earth compound coatings are typically applied in bulk or as a mixture — the representative patent in this set, US20170260616A1, claims a mixture of ScF3 with an initial plasma-resistant material chosen from a defined list that includes Y2O3 and YF3. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) coatings, by contrast, are claimed separately in this dataset as erosion-resistant coatings built through a layer-by-layer deposition process, often in multi-layer stacks. The two are not mutually exclusive: ALD is a deposition method that can apply yttria-family chemistries, but the patents treat the deposition process and the mixture chemistry as distinct claim elements.
The white space sits in deposition methods and raw chemistry rather than in the coating-layer claims themselves. Spraying and atomising (B05B) and electroplating and electroforming (C25D) each carry only a single record against a coating core of 29 records in C23C, and rare-earth compound chemistry (C01F) is similarly thin. That imbalance means a filer differentiating on how a coating is physically applied, or on a rare-earth precursor formulation tied to a measurable performance outcome, faces far less claim density than one filing on the coating layer composition alone.
Filing in this dataset is concentrated among a small group of semiconductor equipment and materials suppliers, with the most-cited records held by established chamber-component and equipment manufacturers. Recent-year momentum across the tracked assignees is flat, with zero filings in the latest year across every one of them, which is consistent with the overall decline from the 2017 peak. Reviewing the assignee ranking alongside the citation table is the most reliable way to see which filers hold the foundational claims versus which have filed narrower, later refinements.
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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.
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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.