GAA 2D / Nanosheet Channel Materials Patent Landscape
Three organizations — IBM, Intel, and TSMC — collectively dominate a highly concentrated field of 1,173 patent families covering gate-all-around nanosheet channel materials, together accounting for the majority of output among the hundred largest filers. The field reached peak annual volume in 2022 and has since plateaued, with Intel and Samsung showing accelerating recent momentum while IBM’s filing rate has pulled back.
IBM, Intel, and TSMC lead a tightly consolidated field
IBM holds the top position with 336 patent families, followed by Intel at 270 and TSMC at 244 — the three leaders alone represent the bulk of activity in this space. Qualcomm and Samsung rank fourth and fifth at 57 and 55 patent families respectively, completing a pronounced top tier.
The top five filers account for 75% of the combined output of the hundred largest filers, indicating exceptional concentration. A sharp drop separates the top three from the next tier: GlobalFoundries at 38, Applied Materials at 32, and IMEC at 26 are meaningful contributors but sit in a clearly subordinate bracket.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | International Business Machines Corporation | 336 | |
| 2 | Intel Corporation | 270 | |
| 3 | Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | 244 | |
| 4 | Qualcomm Incorporated | 57 | |
| 5 | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 55 | |
| 6 | GlobalFoundries US Inc. | 38 | |
| 7 | Applied Materials, Inc. | 32 | |
| 8 | Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) | 26 | |
| 9 | Tokyo Electron Limited | 21 | |
| 10 | Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 20 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences | 18 | |
| 12 | Adeia Semiconductor Solutions LLC | 14 | |
| 13 | IBM United Kingdom Ltd. | 10 | |
| 14 | Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. | 9 | |
| 15 | Parabellum Strategic Opportunities Fund LLC | 7 | |
| 16 | IBM Deutschland GmbH | 7 | |
| 17 | KOREA ADVANCED INST OF SCI & TECH | 7 | |
| 18 | Synopsys, Inc. | 7 | |
| 19 | French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) | 7 | |
| 20 | SK Hynix Inc. | 6 |
The dominance of IBM and the two leading foundries (Intel and TSMC) reflects the reality that GAA nanosheet process development is tightly coupled to leading-edge logic node roadmaps, giving incumbent IDMs and foundries a structural advantage in accumulating relevant IP.
Filing counts for 2024 and especially 2025–2026 are under-represented due to typical patent publication lag; apparent recent softness should not be read as reduced investment. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Annual volume peaked in 2022; device-level IPC classes dominate the technology mix
The filing trend reveals a rapid build-up phase from 2017 through 2022, followed by a plateau, while the technology composition shows that semiconductor device classes absorb nearly all activity with only thin coverage in adjacent branches.
Annual filing trend
Filings grew sharply from 39 in 2017 to a peak of 214 in 2022, then eased to 172 in 2023 and 142 in 2024. The 2025 and 2026 figures are heavily under-counted due to publication lag and should not be interpreted as trend data.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H01L (Semiconductor devices) and H10D (Semiconductor devices, general) together account for the overwhelming share of classified records, confirming that activity is concentrated in transistor-level device and process engineering. Nanotechnology applications (B82Y) and memory device manufacture (H10B) appear at materially lower levels, pointing to under-served adjacent branches.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Stacked nanosheet gate-all-around device with air …
The present disclosure relates to a stacked nanosheet gate-all-around device with an air spacer and a method of manufacturing a stacked nanosheet gate-all-around device with an air spacer. The stacked nanosheet gate-all-around device with the air spacer includes: a substrate with a shallow trench isolation structure on a surface of the substrate; a… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Multi-channel gate-all-around fet | 232 |
| 2 | Gate-all-around nanowire device and method for man… | 206 |
| 3 | Metal gate of gate-all-around transistor | 141 |
| 4 | Sub-fin isolation schemes for gate-all-around tran… | 140 |
| 5 | Gate-all-around field-effect transistor devices ha… | 134 |
| 6 | Formation of self-limited inner spacer for gate-al… | 114 |
| 7 | Nanosheet transistor with improved inner spacer | 102 |
| 8 | Nanosheet transistor with uniform effective gate l… | 102 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the landscape structure means for R&D strategy
The combination of high concentration, plateau-stage annual volumes, and thin coverage in adjacent branches shapes where incremental and differentiated R&D investment is most defensible.
Field has plateaued near its 2022 peak
The lifecycle stage is best characterized as approaching maturity: annual filings have plateaued near their 2022 peak of 214 families, though the multi-year window still reflects substantial accumulated output. New entrants face a dense prior-art environment in core device and process engineering, making differentiation through adjacent or application-specific claims increasingly important.
Plateau stageTop three control the strategic core
IBM (336 patent families), Intel (270), and TSMC (244) collectively define the core IP landscape. Their portfolios are clustered in H01L 29 device physics and H01L 21 fabrication process classes, making clean-room entry in those sub-classes highly risky. The tier-two players — GlobalFoundries, Applied Materials, IMEC — offer more accessible collaboration or licensing targets.
High concentrationIBM ecosystem is the most active co-filing network
IBM is the hub of the most active co-filing relationships: it has filed jointly with IBM UK (10 co-filed families), IBM Deutschland (7), the French CEA (6), GlobalFoundries (4), and STMicroelectronics (4). IMEC and Huawei represent a separate collaboration axis with 6 co-filed families, and TSMC has co-filed with National Taiwan University on 5 families.
IBM-centric networkUS-centric filing with limited Asian and European coverage
The United States is the dominant filing jurisdiction by a wide margin, followed by EPO at 108 records, China at 61, and WIPO PCT at 54. South Korea and Taiwan each have modest coverage. The skew toward a single jurisdiction creates potential freedom-to-operate gaps in regions where the leading filers have not yet sought protection.
US-dominantGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| International Business Machines Corporation | IBM United Kingdom Ltd. | 10 |
| International Business Machines Corporation | IBM Deutschland GmbH | 7 |
| International Business Machines Corporation | French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) | 6 |
| Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) | Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 6 |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | National Taiwan University | 5 |
| International Business Machines Corporation | GlobalFoundries Inc. | 4 |
| International Business Machines Corporation | STMicroelectronics, Inc. | 4 |
| GlobalFoundries Inc. | STMicroelectronics, Inc. | 4 |
| Tokyo Electron Limited | Tokyo Electron US Holdings Inc. | 2 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
IBM leads by volume; Intel is the fastest-accelerating challenger
The top three players share a similar IPC focus on H01L 29 and H01L 21 classes, but diverge markedly in recent filing trajectory — IBM is pulling back while Intel and Samsung are accelerating.
International Business Machines Corporation
IBM holds 336 patent families — the largest single portfolio in this corpus — concentrated in H01L 29 (345 records), H01L 21 (222 records), and H10D 62 (180 records). Despite its leading stock, IBM’s recent three-year filing rate has declined at a trend of -40% versus the prior period, suggesting the company may be consolidating rather than expanding its nanosheet IP frontier.
families: 336Intel Corporation
Intel’s 270 patent families are similarly anchored in H01L 29 (260 records) and H01L 21 (177 records), with notable weight also in H01L 27 integrated circuits (167 records) — reflecting a system-level integration emphasis. Intel’s recent filing trend is +38% versus the prior three-year window, making it the most aggressively expanding major incumbent in the field.
families: 270| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| International Business Machines Corporation | 98 | ▼ -40% |
| Intel Corporation | 137 | ▲ +38% |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | 115 | ▬ -5% |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | 28 | ▲ +12% |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 36 | ▲ 3.3× vs prior 3-yr |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 26 | ▲ new entrant |
| Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) | 6 | ▲ new entrant |
| Tokyo Electron Limited | 6 | ▲ new entrant |
Nanotechnology applications and memory integration are under-served relative to the device core
While the dominant H01L and H10D device classes are densely covered, several adjacent IPC branches show materially lower patent counts, representing areas where the prior-art density is lower and differentiated positions may be more accessible.
B82Y · Nanotechnology applications
This branch holds 166 records against a much larger device-layer corpus, and IMEC is the primary filer explicitly cross-classifying into nanotechnology frameworks. The sparse coverage relative to the device core suggests that fundamental nanomaterial characterization, synthesis routes, and nano-scale metrology for nanosheet channels remain under-patented. An entrant with materials science depth — particularly in 2D semiconductor deposition or atomic-layer engineering — could establish a differentiated position here without directly confronting the IBM-Intel-TSMC device-process thicket.
Search this in Eureka →H10B · Memory device manufacture
With only 79 records, the application of GAA nanosheet architectures to memory (DRAM, embedded SRAM, emerging non-volatile) is lightly covered relative to logic transistor applications. As logic foundries move GAA into mainstream nodes, extending the channel architecture into memory periphery and embedded memory becomes a technically plausible next step. The low prior-art density in H10B makes this an adjacent branch worth monitoring, particularly for players already active in H10D who could extend claims into memory-specific process integration.
Search this in Eureka →How leaders differ by technology route across IPC sub-classes
Route coverage across the main technology branches in the current evidence set.
| Player | H01L 29 · Semiconductor devices | H01L 21 · Semiconductor devices | H01L 27 · Semiconductor devices | H10D 62 · Semiconductor devices (general) | H10D 64 · Semiconductor devices (general) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| International Business Machines Corporation | Strong · 345 | Strong · 222 | Moderate · 149 | Strong · 180 | Moderate · 145 |
| Intel Corporation | Strong · 260 | Strong · 177 | Strong · 167 | Strong · 141 | Strong · 136 |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | Strong · 246 | Strong · 181 | Moderate · 118 | Strong · 138 | Strong · 131 |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | Strong · 56 | Strong · 36 | Strong · 33 | Moderate · 14 | Moderate · 13 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Strong · 53 | Moderate · 23 | Moderate · 26 | Moderate · 15 | Moderate · 17 |
| GlobalFoundries Inc. | Strong · 29 | Strong · 19 | Moderate · 12 | Strong · 21 | Strong · 15 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | Strong · 32 | Strong · 24 | Moderate · 13 | Moderate · 11 | Moderate · 11 |
Frequently asked questions
The corpus covers 1,173 patent families. This is the scope used for applicant rankings, filing trends, and technology composition analysis in this report.
IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) holds the largest portfolio with 336 patent families, ahead of Intel at 270 and TSMC at 244.
The field reached peak annual volume in 2022 at 214 families per year and has since plateaued. On a multi-year basis the corpus is still expanding, but annual volume has eased from that 2022 peak. The most recent data points (2025–2026) are under-counted due to publication lag and do not reflect actual filing rates.
The United States is the dominant jurisdiction by a substantial margin, followed by EPO, China, and WIPO PCT filings. South Korea and Taiwan have more limited coverage.
IBM is the hub of the most active collaboration network, co-filing with IBM UK (10 families), IBM Deutschland (7), and the French CEA (6). IMEC and Huawei form a separate axis with 6 co-filed families, and TSMC has co-filed with National Taiwan University on 5 families.
The B82Y nanotechnology applications branch (166 records) and H10B memory device manufacture branch (79 records) show materially lower prior-art density than the dominant H01L device classes. These are adjacent branches where differentiated positions may be more accessible, particularly for entrants with materials science or memory integration expertise.
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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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