Large Diameter Wafer Handling Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Large Diameter and Thin Wafer Handling Patents
45.1% concentration. The top 5 assignees hold 675 of 1,497 records in scope — filing here is dominated by a small group rather than spread evenly. Filings rose from 61 in 2017 to a peak of 119 in 2022, then eased — 116 in 2021 to 81 in 2024 marks a -30% move across the last fully comparable years. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as continued decline.
- 1TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO LTD14.9%
- 2MONOLITHIC 3D INC14.5%
- 3BREWER SCIENCE INC6.8%
- 4SUSS MICROTEC LITHOGRAPHY GMBH4.7%
- 5MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC4.1%
See the full large diameter and thin wafer handling 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 on this landscape
Who holds the most patents in thin wafer handling?
One assignee leads the ranked field with 223 of the 1,497 records in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 62 and tenth place at 28. The top 5 assignees combined account for 45.1% of all records, and the top 10 extend that to 56.7%. That steep drop-off after the leader indicates a genuinely dominant filer rather than a tightly bunched group of equals, so any competitive read of this space should treat the leader’s portfolio as the primary reference point.
Is patent filing in wafer handling growing or slowing down?
Filings rose to a peak of 119 records in 2022, then declined to 81 by 2024 — a -30% change across the last two years that can be fairly compared. That is a real pullback, but it should not be extended into 2025 or 2026: publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the newest years in any patent dataset are always undercounted. Treat the 2024 figure, not the 2026 one, as the most recent reliable data point.
What technology areas dominate thin wafer handling patents?
H01L, the semiconductor-devices classification, appears in 86.9% of the 1,497 records in scope, making it the anchor class for this field. H10P and H10W each appear in roughly a quarter of records, while narrower classes like B32B (layered products/laminates) and B23K (welding, soldering and brazing) sit at 7.4% and 3.7% respectively. Because records often carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100%, and they should be read against the 1,497-record total rather than against each other.
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 Large Diameter and Thin Wafer Handling 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.