Cryogenic Etching Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- 36.3% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees together hold 1,191 of the 3,280 records in scope — a dense core surrounded by a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- Filing cooled from its 2021 pace. Volume moved from 77 records in 2021 to 65 in 2024, a 16% pullback over that span, even as 2025 posted the highest single-year count (160) in the dataset so far.
- H01L dominates, but B41J is not noise. 46.8% of records sit in semiconductor devices (H01L), yet 26.5% carry a printer/typewriter code (B41J) — a legacy of inkjet printhead fabrication using the same deep-etch toolset.
Filing growth compares 2021 (77 records) with 2024 (65) — 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 3,280 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Cryogenic etching lowers substrate temperature during plasma etching to slow sidewall erosion and sharpen the profile of deep, high-aspect-ratio features. The technique competes with room-temperature Bosch-process cycling for the same jobs: through-silicon vias, MEMS trenches, and — as this dataset shows — inkjet printhead nozzles. The 3,280 records in scope span 2015 through mid-2026 and were pulled using claim and description language around scallop formation, passivation layers, notching at the substrate interface, mask erosion and etch-rate scaling — the specific failure modes that separate a working cryogenic process from one that just runs cold.
Filings route overwhelmingly through the United States (2,189 records), with Europe, WIPO/PCT and Germany making up most of the remainder. That skew matters for freedom-to-operate work: a clearance search that stops at the USPTO will miss the EPO and DE filings sitting behind roughly a tenth of the corpus.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 3,280 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Volume ran from 112 records in 2017 to a peak of 160 in 2025. The 2021-to-2024 window shows a 16% decline (77 to 65), but 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete under the ~18-month publication lag, so a slowdown reading should stop at 2024.
IPC subclass composition
H01L (semiconductor devices) covers 46.8% of records and B41J (printers) covers 26.5% — together they account for most filings, with H10P, H10W, H10D, G06F, G11B and B81C forming a secondary tier. Because records carry multiple codes, these shares sum past 100% and should be read against the 3,280-record total, not against each other.
Shares are the percentage of the 3,280 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Cryogenic Etching for Deep Structures with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about cryogenic etching for deep structures and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
US20230230840A1 — Process gas for cryogenic etching, plasma etching apparatus, and fabrication method
A method of fabricating a semiconductor device comprises forming a mold layer on a substrate, forming a hardmask layer on the mold layer such that a portion of the mold layer is exposed, and using the hardmask layer to perform on the mold layer a cryogenic etching process. The cryogenic etching process includes supplying a chamber with a process gas including first and second process gases, and generating a plasma from the process gas. Radicals of the first process gas etch the exposed portion of the mold layer, producing an ammonium salt; the second process gas includes an R-OH compound where R is hydrogen or a C1 to C5 alkyl group.Filed by Samsung Electronics, published 2023-07-20. The claim scope centres on the process-gas chemistry — specifically the R-OH second gas and its role in salt byproduct control — rather than on chamber hardware.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US7972875B2 | Optical systems fabricated by printing-based assembly | 623 |
| 2 | US20110140172A1 | Reverse side engineered iii-nitride devices | 546 |
| 3 | US20130025786A1 | Systems for and methods of controlling time-multiplexed deep reactive-ion etching processes | 486 |
| 4 | US6652082B2 | Printhead assembly for an ink jet printer | 436 |
| 5 | US20130118895A1 | Apparatus and method for reactive ion etching | 416 |
| 6 | US8722458B2 | Optical systems fabricated by printing-based assembly | 411 |
| 7 | WO2000023279A1 | Improvements relating to inkjet printers | 358 |
| 8 | WO2012100099A2 | Slippery surfaces with high pressure stability, optical transparency, and self-healing characteristics | 334 |
| 9 | US6273544B1 | Inkjet printhead having a self aligned nozzle | 333 |
| 10 | US20140373898A1 | Optical systems fabricated by printing-based assembly | 314 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside a searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence on subsequent filers, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about the field
Three read-throughs from the concentration, trend and composition figures above.
A dense core, then a long tail
The leading assignee alone holds 453 records; the fifth-ranked holds 127. That drop-off, combined with a top-10 share of 48.6%, points to a field where a handful of players occupy the core process-chemistry claims while the remaining ranked entrants file narrowly around specific tool or gas-chemistry variants.
Volume eased from its 2021 high, not from 2025's spike
Filings dropped from 77 in 2021 to 65 in 2024. 2025's count of 160 looks like a rebound, but recent years are still filling in under the ~18-month publication lag, so that number will likely settle rather than stay a clean high-water mark.
Printhead fabrication shares the toolset
A quarter of the corpus sits in B41J alongside the semiconductor-heavy H01L class. Deep silicon etch for inkjet nozzle structures uses much of the same cryogenic and Bosch-process chemistry as through-silicon-via work, so prior art searches confined to semiconductor classes will miss a real slice of relevant claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cryogenic etching for deep structures, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space, and where it thins out
The ranked list runs 100 companies deep. A small group of tool makers and device manufacturers hold the bulk of the volume; most of the rest of the ranking files in single digits.
The top-ranked assignee
The leading assignee's 453 records is more than triple the fifth-place count of 127, marking a clear gap between the single largest filer and the rest of the concentrated group.
Multiple established filers went quiet
Several of the historically largest assignees — spanning printhead, semiconductor-device and IDM names — show zero filings in the most recent year, with a number posting -100% year-on-year. That is consistent with the broader 2021-to-2024 pullback rather than a single company's exit.
Inventor-level collaboration is concentrated
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest of them — linked through a common corporate inventor group — shares 51 records. Co-filing is the exception here, not the norm; most records list a single assignee.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd | 0 | — |
| Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC | 0 | -100% |
| SILVEBROOK KIA | 0 | -100% |
| Infineon Technologies AG | 0 | -100% |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | 0 | -100% |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | — |
| Lam Research Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above establish where the field sits today. Two directions extend the analysis for a specific filing or freedom-to-operate decision.
Map the white space claim by claim
The under-claimed sub-areas identified here — temperature ramp control, notching mitigation, mask erosion compensation — need claim-level review against the leader's active filings before a new application can rely on them being open.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the leader's continuation activity
With one assignee holding 453 records and several major filers dropping to zero in the latest tracked year, the next filing wave is likely to come from a narrower set of active players rather than the historical field.
Monitor assignee activity in EurekaCommon questions on cryogenic etching patents
Cryogenic etching cools the substrate, typically well below room temperature, during plasma etching so that sidewall passivation forms more effectively and the etch profile stays vertical over deep, high-aspect-ratio features. It is used for through-silicon vias, MEMS trenches and, notably in this dataset, inkjet printhead nozzle structures. The technique is one of two dominant approaches for deep reactive-ion etching, the other being the room-temperature Bosch process with its alternating etch and passivation cycles.
The Bosch process alternates etch and passivation steps at room temperature, producing the characteristic scalloped sidewalls that this dataset's search terms specifically target. Cryogenic etching instead relies on continuous low-temperature operation to form a thin passivation layer in situ, generally producing smoother sidewalls with less scalloping but requiring tighter substrate-temperature control. Patent filings in this space often address exactly that trade-off — profile smoothness versus process-window sensitivity.
The ranked list covers 100 companies, with the leading assignee holding 453 of the 3,280 records in scope and the top five together holding 36.3% of all records. The field includes semiconductor equipment makers, device manufacturers and, historically, inkjet printhead companies whose deep-etch fabrication overlaps with semiconductor process chemistry. Several of the largest historical filers show no filings in the most recent tracked year, so current leadership may differ from cumulative leadership.
Filing volume fell 16% from 77 records in 2021 to 65 in 2024, the most recent year that can be treated as complete given typical publication lag. 2025 shows the highest single-year count in the dataset at 160 records, but figures for 2025 and 2026 are still filling in and should not yet be read as a renewed growth trend. The safest read is that the field cooled through 2024 after an earlier active period, with the 2025 figure still uncertain.
Relative to the dense core around semiconductor device fabrication (H01L, 46.8% of records) and printhead structures (B41J, 26.5%), several process-control sub-areas show thinner coverage: substrate temperature ramp control, notching mitigation at buried interfaces, mask erosion compensation, and etch-rate scaling for the smallest trench geometries. These are candidate areas for new filings, though any claim there should be checked against the leader's active portfolio first, since concentration at the top means core chemistry claims are likely already occupied.
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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.