Deep Silicon Etch Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Deep Silicon Etch for MEMS Structures: Patents Behind Sidewall Control and Aspect-Ratio Etching
28.0% concentration at the top. The top 5 of 343 records account for 96 filings (28.0%), with the leader alone holding 21 — a narrow group controls a meaningful share of documented etch-control art. Filings peaked at 20 in 2017. Activity has since cooled, with 2021 at 13 falling to 6 by 2024 — a 54% drop over that three-year span, the last window unaffected by publication lag. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a continued decline.
- 1NANOHENRY INC21
- 2CUBIC CORP21
- 3NUVOTRONICS INC20
- 4MURATA MFG CO LTD19
- 5CALIFORNIA INST OF TECH15
See the full deep silicon etch for mems structures analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about deep silicon etch patents
What counts as a deep silicon etch or DRIE patent in this landscape?
This dataset covers patents and applications describing deep reactive ion etching, deep silicon etch, or deep trench etching processes, combined with claims about sidewall verticality, notching effects, aspect-ratio-dependent etching, scallop roughness, mask undercut, or uniformity across the wafer. It excludes general silicon etch patents that do not address these specific process-control problems. The 343 records span 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off across multiple receiving offices, led by the United States, EPO and WIPO/PCT.
Who are the leading patent holders in deep silicon etch technology?
The ranking returned by the dataset covers 100 assignees, with the single leading assignee holding 21 of the 343 records in scope. The top 5 assignees combined hold 96 records, or 28.0% of the field, while the top 10 combined hold 157 records, 45.8% of the total. That leaves more than half the field distributed across a long tail of assignees with only a handful of filings each, including universities, instrument makers and specialist MEMS foundries.
Is deep silicon etch patent filing activity increasing or decreasing?
Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 20 records and has since cooled: the last fully comparable window shows 13 filings in 2021 falling to 6 by 2024, a 54% decline over that three-year span. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, 2025 and 2026 counts in the raw data are still incomplete and should not be read as evidence the decline is continuing or accelerating. A clearer read on the most recent years will only be available once those cohorts finish publishing.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Deep Silicon Etch for MEMS Structures covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.