Glass Thinning Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The top 5 ranked assignees account for 78.9% of all 19 records in scope, with a single leader holding 7 filings.
- A narrow but stacked field. Only 19 published records sit inside this search, yet H10P and H01L classes alone cover roughly a third of them each, showing dense overlap between glass etching and semiconductor device claims.
- Momentum has shifted to new entrants. The prior leader shows 0 filings in the latest year (-100% YoY), while INNMATS PTE LTD and DR B R Ambedkar NIT Jalandhar each posted the field's only latest-year filings.
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (3) — 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 19 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Glass thinning and slimming processes reduce substrate thickness through hydrofluoric acid etching and related wet-chemical routes, controlling thickness uniformity, surface roughness and edge quality as the glass is thinned. The search underlying this page combines title terms for the process itself with description-level terms for the process controls that separate a workable recipe from a failed one: etchant regeneration, waste acid handling, and edge quality.
The result is a small, tightly scoped corpus of 19 published records rather than a broad glass-manufacturing landscape. That scope matters for how the figures below should be read: this is a search-defined slice of assignees active in etch-based thinning and its downstream device applications, not a full industry census.
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Filing trend and technology composition
The two views below cover the same 19 records: one tracks when they were filed, the other where they sit across IPC subclasses.
Filing activity, 2017 to 2026
Filings ran from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 4 in 2021, then eased to 3 by 2024 — a -25% change over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the recent-year dip should not be read as the field cooling.
IPC subclass distribution
H10P appears on 36.8% of the 19 records and H01L on 31.6%, showing that glass thinning claims here are closely tied to semiconductor and memory device manufacture (H10B, H10N) rather than standalone glass processing. C03C, the dedicated glass-composition class, covers 21.1% of records — a reminder that much of this corpus treats glass thinning as a step inside a device process rather than a glass-industry invention in its own right. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to more than 100% of the 19-record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 19 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Glass Thinning and Slimming Processes with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about glass thinning and slimming processes and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this landscape
RRAM bottom electrode (US20200136040A1)
An integrated circuit device has an RRAM cell with a bottom electrode whose surface is formed by chemical mechanical polishing followed by hydrofluoric acid etching and argon ion bombardment, leaving a surface roughness Ra of 2 nm or less and a density gradient toward the surface. The claimed process yields an RRAM array with narrower distribution and higher device uniformity than prior electrode-forming methods.Filed by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., published 2020-04-30.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN107235641A | 一种玻璃减薄蚀刻液及其制备方法 | 21 |
| 2 | US20030111336A1 | Large area silicon cone arrays fabrication and cone based nanostructure modification | 15 |
| 3 | CN110316970A | 超薄石英玻璃片的制备方法 | 11 |
| 4 | CN106929856A | 一种氢氟酸刻蚀改变金属镍表面润湿性能的方法 | 7 |
| 5 | US6761803B2 | Large area silicon cone arrays fabrication and cone based nanostructure modification | 3 |
| 6 | CN114573243A | 一种超薄玻璃减薄工艺 | 2 |
| 7 | US12041861B2 | RRAM bottom electrode | 2 |
| 8 | US11189788B2 | RRAM bottom electrode | 2 |
| 9 | US20200136040A1 | RRAM bottom electrode | 1 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on later work, not a measure of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (9 of 9 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once the ranking, trend and class data are read together.
A small leadership group, not a crowded field
With only 19 records in scope and the top 5 assignees already covering 78.9% of them, there is limited room for a new entrant to build a position by volume alone. The leader's 7 filings set the pace, but the drop to a fifth-place count of 1 shows how thin the tail is beneath the top few.
Etching claims sit inside device manufacture, not glass science
H10P and H01L together dominate the class mix, ahead of the dedicated glass class C03C at 21.1%. That pattern signals most inventive activity here is framed as a device-fabrication step — RRAM, memory, or discharge-tube manufacture — rather than as a glass-industry improvement.
The incumbent has gone quiet; two newcomers filled the gap
The formerly leading assignee shows zero filings in the latest year, a -100% year-on-year change, while INNMATS PTE LTD and DR B R Ambedkar NIT Jalandhar each contributed the field's only latest-year activity. That is a small sample, but it is the clearest sign of where new activity is entering.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to glass thinning and slimming processes, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the openings sit
The ranked leaders here come from a 9-company list built from just 19 records — small enough that a single new filer can shift the picture, but concentrated enough at the top that displacing the leader by volume is difficult.
One assignee sets the filing pace
The top-ranked assignee holds 7 of the 19 records in this landscape, well ahead of the fifth-place count of 1. Its filings anchor the semiconductor-adjacent side of the corpus, consistent with the H01L and H10P weighting in the class data.
Two newcomers carry the most recent activity
INNMATS PTE LTD and DR B R Ambedkar NIT Jalandhar are the only assignees with a filing in the latest year, each contributing one record. Neither appears among the historically top-ranked filers, which is the clearest evidence of where fresh interest is showing up.
Filing geography favours the US office
United States receiving-office filings outnumber China and India combined across this corpus, with 12 records filed there against 5 in China and 2 in India. Any freedom-to-operate check on glass thinning claims should start with US prosecution history given that weighting.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| INNMATS PTE LTD | 1 | — |
| DR B R AMBEDKAR NAT INST OF TECH JALANDHAR | 1 | — |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (TSMC) | 0 | -100% |
| Nanya Technology Corporation | 0 | — |
| City University of Hong Kong | 0 | — |
| Institute of Materials, China Academy of Engineering Physics | 0 | — |
| Hubei Engineering University | 0 | — |
| Jiangxi Wageye Optoelectronics Group Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above describe the shape of the field; the next step is usually to test a specific claim or gap against the full record set.
Check a draft claim against the cited prior art
Run a candidate claim on thickness uniformity or edge quality against the most-cited records in this set, particularly the etching-liquid and ultrathin-glass preparation filings, before committing to a filing strategy.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack the newcomer assignees
INNMATS PTE LTD and the Jalandhar institute filings are recent and small in number; set an alert on their future filings rather than relying on this snapshot alone.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaReview the white-space branches
Etchant regeneration and waste acid handling appear in the search scope but are thinly represented in the class data — worth a dedicated search before assuming the space is clear.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about glass thinning patents
This landscape identifies 19 published records matching a search combining glass thinning and hydrofluoric acid etching terms with process-control terms such as thickness uniformity, surface roughness and edge quality. That is a narrow, search-defined slice rather than every patent that touches glass manufacturing, so the true universe of related filings under broader glass-processing searches would be larger. The 19-record base is the denominator used throughout this page's shares and rankings.
The ranking returned by this dataset covers 9 companies, with the top-ranked assignee holding 7 of the 19 records and the top 5 combined accounting for 78.9% of all records in scope. That is a concentrated picture for a small field: most of the ranked list holds only one or two filings each. Recent-year data shows the historical leader with zero filings in the latest year, so current leadership by volume and current filing activity are not the same thing here.
Filings ran from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 4 in 2021, then to 3 by 2024, a -25% change over that three-year window. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 counts are still incomplete and should not be read as a genuine slowdown yet. The safest comparison point is 2021 to 2024, which is the span the underlying growth figure on this page actually covers.
US20200136040A1 claims an RRAM bottom electrode formed by chemical mechanical polishing followed by hydrofluoric acid etching and argon ion bombardment, producing a surface roughness of 2 nm or less with a density gradient near the interface. It is assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and published in 2020. Anyone using a comparable etch-then-bombardment sequence to hit sub-2nm roughness on an electrode surface in RRAM fabrication should review this filing's specific process-order claims before assuming a clear path.
The class data shows heavy weighting toward H10P and H01L, semiconductor and memory-device manufacture, and comparatively thin coverage of dedicated glass-composition claims under C03C and coating-assisted approaches under B05D. Etchant regeneration and waste acid handling appear in the search terms themselves but do not show up strongly as a distinct, heavily claimed branch in this corpus. Those under-claimed areas are worth a dedicated search before assuming a first-filer advantage is unavailable.
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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.