E-Beam Inspection Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees hold 31 of 39 records in scope (79.5%), and the ranked ten hold 97.4% — there is almost no long tail left to file into unclaimed ground.
- Filing has cooled since 2018. The trend peaked at 7 records in 2018 and sits flat-to-declining since, with the 2022 midpoint at zero — a sign the core claim space filled early.
- Electron optics dominates the classification mix. H01J (electron and discharge tubes) appears on 71.8% of the 39 records, well ahead of material analysis (G01N, 41.0%) and semiconductor devices (H01L, 28.2%).
What the e-beam inspection patent record shows
E-beam inspection and review equipment sits at the intersection of electron optics, defect detection and semiconductor process control. Patents in this space cover the physical column and beam-forming hardware as well as the algorithms and test structures used to find buried defects, resolve voltage contrast, and manage throughput and charging artifacts on shrinking process nodes. The 39 records in scope span 2015 through the current data cut-off, filed mainly through the United States receiving office, with smaller volumes routed through Israel, the EPO, Taiwan, Singapore and the PCT.
Filing activity peaked in 2018 and has not returned to that level since; the most recent years should be read with the usual publication lag in mind, since filings from the last 18 months are still working through to grant. The assignee ranking is short and top-heavy, and the IPC composition points to a field still anchored in electron-tube and beam-column engineering rather than downstream data or metrology software.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 39 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A peak in 2018, then a flat-to-declining line
Filings rose to 7 in 2018, the high point of the series, then fell back; the 2022 midpoint reads zero and the most recent year is still partial, so treat the tail of the chart as understated rather than as evidence of a stalled field.
Electron optics still leads the classification mix
H01J covers 71.8% of the 39 records, more than G01N (41.0%) and H01L (28.2%) combined against the record total — a reminder that the beam-forming hardware, not the downstream defect-analysis software, still carries most of the claim volume in this dataset.
Shares are the percentage of the 39 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on E-Beam Inspection and Review Equipment with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about e-beam inspection and review equipment and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this dataset
E-beam inspection apparatus and method of using the same on various integrated circuit chips
The present invention discloses an e-beam inspection tool, and an apparatus for detecting defects. In one aspect is described an apparatus for detecting defects that includes a focusing column that accelerates the e-beam and separately, for each of the plurality of predetermined locations, focuses the e-beam to a predetermined non-circular spot that is within the predetermined surface area of each of the plurality of predetermined locations based upon the major axis.Filed by PDF Solutions, Inc., published 2017-10-17 as US9793090B2.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20090057664A1 | E-beam inspection structure for leakage analysis | 107 |
| 2 | US9496119B1 | E-beam inspection apparatus and method of using the same on various integrated circuit chips | 77 |
| 3 | US8748814B1 | Structure for inspecting defects in word line array fabricated by SADP process and method thereof | 64 |
| 4 | US6797955B1 | Filtered e-beam inspection and review | 21 |
| 5 | US6979824B1 | Filtered e-beam inspection and review | 14 |
| 6 | US6885000B1 | Method and apparatus to correct for stage motion in E-beam inspection | 12 |
| 7 | US6812461B1 | Photocathode source for e-beam inspection or review | 12 |
| 8 | US6858843B1 | Immersion objective lens for e-beam inspection | 8 |
| 9 | US20040086172A1 | Alignment mark for e-beam inspection of a semiconductor wafer | 6 |
| 10 | WO2019042905A1 | Electron beam inspection tool | 5 |
Citation counts are drawn from a searched corpus and skew toward older filings; read them as a signal of influence on later work, not as a ranking of current commercial relevance.
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Reading the ranking, the trend and the IPC mix together points to a field where the column-hardware claims are largely staked out and the open ground sits elsewhere.
Five assignees hold most of the field
The leading assignee alone accounts for 18 of the 39 records in scope. With the top five combined at 79.5% and the top ten at 97.4%, new entrants are filing into a space where the dominant claim positions are already held by a small group.
Filing has not recovered since 2018
Volume climbed to 7 records in 2018, the high point of the series, then fell back toward flat with the 2022 midpoint reading zero. That pattern is consistent with a technology whose core hardware claims filled early rather than one still in an active build-out phase.
Electron-tube claims still dominate
H01J appears on 71.8% of the 39 records, ahead of G01N material analysis at 41.0% and H01L semiconductor devices at 28.2%. Smaller subclasses such as G01Q scanning-probe measurement (12.8%) and G21K particle handling (5.1%) show where claim density thins out.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to e-beam inspection and review equipment, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claims, and where the gate sits
The ranked assignees include equipment makers, foundries and fabless design houses, reflecting that e-beam inspection claims are filed both by the tool vendors and by the chipmakers instrumenting their own process control.
One assignee holds nearly half the dataset
The top-ranked assignee accounts for 18 of the 39 records, roughly twice the combined count of the next four leaders. That single-firm weight is unusual for a hardware category this narrow and suggests a long-running, deliberately built portfolio rather than opportunistic filing.
A tight cluster below the leader
Fifth place sits at just 2 records, meaning the gap between the leader and the rest of the field is steep rather than gradual. Firms entering now are competing for space among assignees who each hold only a handful of filings.
Little room left in the ranked list
The tenth-ranked assignee holds a single record, and the ranked ten together already cover 97.4% of all 39 records in scope. Very little of the documented activity sits outside this group of eleven companies.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| ASML Netherlands B.V. | 0 | — |
| Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. | 0 | — |
| KLA-Tencor Technology Corp. | 0 | — |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| PDF Solutions, Inc. | 0 | — |
| GlobalFoundries Singapore Pte. Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Macronix International Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Texas Instruments Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a mature, concentrated core and a thinner set of adjacent branches. The next step is deciding which of those branches is worth a first claim.
Map the white space in G01Q and G21K
Scanning-probe correlation and particle-handling claims sit well below the H01J core; a focused search of those subclasses can confirm whether a first-filer position is still open.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the leading assignee's recent filings
With one assignee holding 18 of 39 records, understanding its most recent priority claims is the fastest way to see where the dominant portfolio is still being extended.
Monitor assignee activity in EurekaWatch for a filing rebound
Volume has been flat since the 2018 peak, but the most recent years are understated by publication lag. A rebound would show up first in provisional and PCT filings.
Set up trend alerts in EurekaCommon questions about e-beam inspection patents
The assignee ranking for this dataset covers 11 companies, spanning equipment vendors, foundries and fabless chipmakers. The leading assignee holds 18 of the 39 records in scope, and the top five combined account for 79.5% of all records. That concentration means most of the documented claim activity sits with a small group rather than being spread across many independent filers.
Filing activity peaked at 7 records in 2018 and has been flat to declining since, with the 2022 midpoint reading zero. That does not necessarily mean interest has stopped; publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent years in any trend chart understate real activity. But there is no visible acceleration in the data through the current cut-off.
Based on IPC classification across the 39 records, H01J (electron and discharge tubes) is the largest single category at 71.8% of records, followed by G01N material analysis and testing at 41.0% and H01L semiconductor devices at 28.2%. Smaller categories include G01R electric and magnetic measurement, G01Q scanning-probe measurement, and G21K particle and radiation handling. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100%.
The subclasses with the lowest record share in this dataset are G21K (particle and radiation handling), G01Q (scanning-probe and nanometric measuring), and the H10P/H10W codes, each covering a small fraction of the 39 records. These are not necessarily low-value areas; they simply carry fewer claims today, which can mean either that they are genuinely under-explored or that filers have judged them less commercially urgent. Either way, a focused prior-art search in those subclasses is the fastest way to test whether a first claim is still available.
Very concentrated relative to the size of the field. The top five assignees hold 79.5% of the 39 records in scope, and the top ten hold 97.4%, leaving almost nothing outside the ranked group of 11 companies. For a company evaluating freedom to operate, this means the practical question is less about avoiding a crowded long tail and more about designing around a small number of dominant portfolios.
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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.