High Aspect Ratio Dielectric Etch Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- 60.6% concentration. The top 5 assignees alone account for 561 of the 926 records in scope — most of the claim space sits with a handful of equipment makers.
- Growth is modest, not explosive. Filings moved from 38 in 2021 to 40 in 2024, a +5% three-year change, well short of a boom narrative.
- H01L dominates but overlaps widely. 65.2% of records touch semiconductor devices (H01L), yet meaningful shares also sit in H10P, G06F and H01J, showing etch claims tangled with device and data-processing filings.
Filing growth compares 2021 (38 records) with 2024 (40) — 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 926 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
High aspect ratio dielectric etch spans the process steps used to cut deep, narrow features into dielectric stacks without the sidewalls bowing, twisting, or losing selectivity against the mask. The search underlying this page combines aspect ratio etching, channel hole etch and dielectric etch terms with the specific failure modes that dominate the claim language of this field — profile bowing, etch stop landing, mask selectivity and sidewall passivation. That pairing narrows the corpus to 926 records that are specifically about controlling etch geometry at extreme aspect ratios, rather than etch chemistry in general.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real filing activity. The 2024 figure is the most recent year treated here as complete.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 926-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing activity, 2017–2026
Filings rose from 42 in 2017 to a peak of 119 in 2025, though the 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in as publications catch up with filing dates. The more reliable comparison is 2021 (38) to 2024 (40), a +5% move over three years, which points to a mature, steadily active field rather than one experiencing a filing surge.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
H01L (semiconductor devices) touches 65.2% of the 926 records, confirming that most high aspect ratio etch claims are framed as device-fabrication steps. Secondary classes such as H10P (21.1%), G06F (16.1%) and H01J (15.6%) show etch claims regularly co-filed with broader device, data-processing and electron-tube subject matter — a record can carry several classes, so these shares add to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 926 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on High Aspect Ratio Dielectric Etch with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about high aspect ratio dielectric etch and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
WO2025175032A1 — In-situ ruthenium or cobalt liner for high aspect ratio etch with bow control
The filing describes etching recessed features in a stack below a mask using a halogen-containing etch gas together with a sidewall passivation gas containing ruthenium or cobalt. Both gases are converted into a plasma, so the same process step etches the stack while depositing an electrically conductive sidewall liner that controls bowing.Filed by Lam Research Corporation, published 2025-08-21.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20130122712A1 | Method of etching high aspect ratio features in a dielectric layer | 567 |
| 2 | US7326656B2 | Method of forming a metal oxide dielectric | 457 |
| 3 | US6051503A | Method of surface treatment of semiconductor substrates | 344 |
| 4 | US20080121916A1 | Method of forming a metal contact and passivation of a semiconductor feature | 254 |
| 5 | US20050003676A1 | Use of ammonia for etching organic low-k dielectrics | 238 |
| 6 | US20060071275A1 | Nonplanar transistors with metal gate electrodes | 229 |
| 7 | US20140166618A1 | Ultra-high speed anisotropic reactive ion etching | 208 |
| 8 | US20140273496A1 | Method of removing a metal hardmask | 202 |
| 9 | US7531437B2 | Method of forming metal gate electrodes using sacrificial gate electrode material and sacrificial gate dielec… | 198 |
| 10 | US20110031216A1 | Synchronized radio frequency pulsing for plasma etching | 183 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and favour older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the assignee ranking, filing trend and IPC composition are read together.
The field is led by a small group of equipment makers
The leader alone holds 266 records, and the top 5 combined reach 561 of the 926 records in scope — 60.6% of the field. That concentration extends further: the top 10 account for 78.8%, leaving a genuine long tail of single- or few-filing entrants below tenth place.
Steady rather than surging
Filing activity moved from 38 in 2021 to 40 in 2024, a +5% change over three years. That is a modest, sustained pace rather than a land-grab, consistent with a process technology being refined incrementally rather than reinvented.
Etch claims rarely stand alone
Most records carry an H01L semiconductor-device classification, but sizeable minorities also fall under H10P, G06F, H01J and memory-specific H10B — a sign that dielectric etch claims are frequently drafted alongside device architecture, control logic, or vacuum-tube subject matter rather than as pure process claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to high aspect ratio dielectric etch, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the activity has gone quiet
The ranked leaders are drawn from 100 companies across the full assignee ranking. Momentum in the most recent year has cooled broadly across the group, which is consistent with the publication-lag effect rather than a genuine pullback.
A single assignee holds close to a third of the field
The leading assignee's 266 records sit well ahead of fifth place at 63, meaning the gap between first and the rest of the top 5 is itself wide, not just between the top 5 and the tail.
Recent-year counts have dropped to zero across leading filers
Several of the most active assignees show zero filings in the latest year and -100% year-on-year change. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this reads as incomplete recent data rather than an actual halt in R&D activity.
Co-filing is concentrated among a few close pairs
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pairings are affiliated entities under the same corporate group rather than cross-company joint filings — suggesting most patenting here is done in-house rather than through external partnerships.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Lam Research Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| SILVEBROOK KIA | 0 | -100% |
| Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd | 0 | — |
| L'Air Liquide, Société Anonyme pour l'Étude et l'Exploitation des Procédés Georges Claude | 0 | — |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Tokyo Electron Limited | 0 | -100% |
| Air Liquide America Corporation | 0 | — |
| VueReal Inc. | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The concentration and composition data point to a field where the claim space near the core process is largely occupied, and the more open ground sits at its edges.
Screen the white space chips against your own claims
The under-claimed sub-areas above were surfaced from the IPC composition and citation pattern in this dataset, not guessed. Run a freedom-to-operate pass on any of them before drafting.
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With several top filers showing a flat latest year due to publication lag, watch for a rebound in the next data refresh rather than assuming activity has stopped.
Set up monitoring in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The assignee ranking for this dataset covers 100 companies, and it is heavily front-loaded: the leading assignee alone holds 266 of the 926 records in scope, and the top 5 combined account for 561 records, or 60.6% of the field. By tenth place, individual assignees hold only 16 records each, so the practical picture is one dominant filer, a handful of strong followers, and a long tail of smaller entrants. Anyone assessing freedom to operate should focus clearance work on the top 5 to 10 assignees first, since they hold the large majority of the claim space.
Filing activity grew modestly rather than surging: from 38 filings in 2021 to 40 in 2024, a +5% change over three years. The raw yearly count shows a peak of 119 in 2025, but that figure and 2026's are both understated because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so recent years always look lower than they will eventually settle. Treat 2024 as the last fully reliable year of data when judging whether the field is heating up or cooling down.
The most-cited record in this dataset is US20130122712A1, 'Method of etching high aspect ratio features in a dielectric layer,' with 567 citations, ahead of US7326656B2 on metal oxide dielectric formation at 457 citations. High citation counts in a searched corpus tend to favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations, so they are best read as a signal of influence on subsequent filings rather than a measure of which patents matter most today.
The technology composition shows heavy concentration in core semiconductor device claims (H01L, 65.2% of records) but comparatively thinner coverage in areas like conductive sidewall liner materials, in-situ bow correction chemistry, and twisting-defect mitigation specific to channel hole etch. These are adjacent to the dense core rather than unrelated to it, which is exactly why they are worth screening: a first claim there can still sit close enough to be commercially relevant while avoiding the most crowded prior art.
Concentration is high by most standards: the top 5 assignees hold 60.6% of the 926 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 78.8%. That leaves roughly a fifth of the field spread across 90 further ranked assignees, most holding only a handful of records each. This pattern is typical of a capital-intensive equipment sector where a small number of firms supply the process tools and therefore file most of the process-control patents.
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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.