Laser Annealing Dopant Activation Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Concentrated but not locked up. the leader holds 64 families and the top 5 combined account for 21.2% of all 1,185 records in scope, leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- Filing has cooled from its 2020 peak. 37 families that year, with the 2021-2024 span down 41% (29 to 17) even as recent-year momentum shows several established filers dropping to zero — though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in.
- Claim density sits overwhelmingly in H01L. 82.4% of records touch H01L, while narrower classes like H01S (lasers, 3.8%) and G02B (optical elements, 4.5%) look comparatively open.
Filing growth compares 2021 (29 records) with 2024 (17) — 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 1,185 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the laser annealing for dopant activation patent record shows
Laser annealing for dopant activation sits at the intersection of thermal processing and semiconductor device fabrication: pulses of laser energy activate dopants or recrystallize thin films without heating the whole substrate. The search underlying this page pulls 1,185 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, filtered to documents that discuss melt versus sub-melt regimes, activation level, pulse duration, pattern-density effects, surface roughness or thermal budget — the technical vocabulary that separates production-grade annealing claims from generic laser-processing filings.
The picture is one of an established but not fully consolidated field. A handful of equipment and device makers built early positions and still lead the ranking, but the combined share of the top filers leaves most of the corpus to companies filing occasionally or once. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the softening visible in the most recent two years should be read cautiously — the underlying filing activity for those years is still being reported.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,185-record corpus: filing activity over time, and where those records sit across IPC subclasses. A record can carry several classes, so composition shares add up to more than 100%.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose to a peak of 37 in 2020, then eased; the 2021-2024 span fell 41% (29 to 17). The 2025 and 2026 counts are understated because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, so this should not yet be read as a falling market.
IPC subclass composition
H01L (semiconductor devices) covers 82.4% of the 1,185 records, with H10P at 44.6% and H10D at 15.8% close behind — confirming most activity is device-integration claims rather than laser-source engineering. Optics- and laser-source classes (G02F, G02B, H10N, H01S) each sit under 6%, marking them as comparatively thin claim territory.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,185 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Laser Annealing for Dopant Activation with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about laser annealing for dopant activation and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative claim
US6607971B1 — Method for extending a laser annealing pulse
Filed by Sharp Laboratories of America, this record describes an extended-pulse laser annealing process: selecting a substrate thickness, choosing an energy density and an extended pulse duration, then annealing a substrate region so that, on cooling, crystal growth in the region is efficiently extended. For a substrate around 300 angstroms thick, the energy density falls between 400 and 500 mJ/cm2 with pulse duration between 70 and 120 nanoseconds.Granted 2003-08-19 — now a foundational citation point for later pulse-duration and lateral-crystallization claims in this corpus.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6236061B1 | Semiconductor crystallization on composite polymer substrates | 353 |
| 2 | US5766989A | Method for forming polycrystalline thin film and method for fabricating thin-film transistor | 308 |
| 3 | US5648276A | Method and apparatus for fabricating a thin film semiconductor device | 276 |
| 4 | US5591668A | Laser annealing method for a semiconductor thin film | 243 |
| 5 | US20030068836A1 | Laser annealing apparatus, TFT device and annealing method of the same | 203 |
| 6 | US20030148565A1 | Method for forming thin semiconductor film, method for fabricating semiconductor device, system for executing… | 179 |
| 7 | US4322253A | Method of making selective crystalline silicon regions containing entrapped hydrogen by laser treatment | 136 |
| 8 | US6136632A | Active matrix substrate, method of producing an active matrix substrate, liquid crystal display device, and e… | 135 |
| 9 | US6316338B1 | Laser annealing method | 133 |
| 10 | US20010014495A1 | Method for forming super-steep retrograded channel (SSRC) for cmos transistor using rapid laser annealing to … | 129 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations inside this corpus — treat them as a measure of influence on later filings, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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The ranking and trend data point to a field where early leaders built durable positions in device-integration claims, while filing intensity across the group has come off its 2020 high.
Leadership is real but not dominant
The leading assignee holds 64 families and the top 5 combined reach 251, or 21.2% of all 1,185 records in scope. That leaves close to four-fifths of the corpus spread across the remaining ranked companies and unranked single filers.
Filing intensity has eased from its peak
Filings peaked at 37 in 2020 and fell across the following years, down 41% from 29 in 2021 to 17 in 2024 — the last year with a reasonably complete count. Several established filers show zero filings in the most recent tracked year, though this partly reflects publication lag rather than a confirmed exit.
Claims cluster on device integration, not the laser source
H01L accounts for 82.4% of records and H10P for 44.6%, showing that most patent activity addresses how annealing integrates into semiconductor device fabrication. Laser-source and optics classes such as H01S (3.8%) and G02B (4.5%) are comparatively lightly claimed.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to laser annealing for dopant activation, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
The ranked leaders span equipment makers, device manufacturers and integrated device foundries, but the tail is long: most of the 100 ranked companies hold only a handful of families each, and co-assignee activity is limited to a small number of recurring pairs.
A single leader well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee holds 64 families, more than the fifth-place company's 37 and well clear of tenth place at 24 — a gap that suggests an entrenched core patent estate rather than a crowded top tier.
Collaboration is limited and specific
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus, with the strongest pairs linked to three or four shared families each. This points to occasional joint development rather than a broad pattern of alliance filing.
Recent-year activity has gone quiet among top filers
Several of the historically most active assignees show zero filings in the latest tracked year, including year-on-year drops of -100% for at least two of them. Given the 18-month publication lag, this is as likely to reflect reporting delay as an actual pause in R&D.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | 0 | -100% |
| Ultratech, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) | 0 | — |
| Fujitsu Limited | 0 | — |
| Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Sony Group Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, scouting or portfolio strategy.
Map claims against the sub-melt and pattern-density branches
With H01S and G02B sitting under 6% of records, a targeted claim chart in laser-source and optics integration could reveal genuine white space rather than crowded prior art.
Explore in EurekaTrack the leader's recent filing pause
A drop to zero latest-year filings from several established assignees is worth verifying against post-lag data before treating it as a strategic retreat.
Run a live monitor in EurekaUse families, not raw counts, for any competitive comparison
Because continuation and multi-jurisdiction filing inflate document counts, comparing assignees on the family-based ranking gives a fairer read of actual patent estate size.
Build a family-level view in EurekaCommon questions on laser annealing dopant activation patents
The assignee ranking, covering 100 companies across 1,185 records, shows a single leader with 64 families, well ahead of the fifth-place company at 37 and tenth place at 24. The top 5 assignees combined account for 21.2% of all records in scope, and the top 10 reach 32.4%. That still leaves the large majority of records spread across a long tail of companies with only a handful of filings each, so no single company controls the field outright.
Filings peaked in 2020 at 37 in a year, then declined; the clearest complete-year comparison shows a 41% drop from 29 filings in 2021 to 17 in 2024. Counts for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so those most recent years are undercounted rather than necessarily reflecting a real slowdown. Anyone tracking this trend should revisit the 2025-2026 figures again in a year or two once reporting catches up.
US6607971B1, assigned to Sharp Laboratories of America and granted in 2003, claims an extended-pulse laser annealing method: selecting a substrate thickness and energy density, choosing an extended pulse duration, and annealing a substrate region so that crystal growth extends laterally as the region cools. Its example parameters cover a roughly 300-angstrom substrate with energy density between 400 and 500 mJ/cm2 and pulse duration between 70 and 120 nanoseconds. It is a widely cited early reference point for pulse-duration control in thin-film crystallization, so later filings in that specific parameter space need to be checked against it.
IPC composition data shows the overwhelming majority of records, 82.4%, sit in H01L (general semiconductor devices), with H10P and H10D also heavily represented. By contrast, classes tied to the laser source and optics itself, such as H01S (lasers and stimulated emission) at 3.8% and G02B (optical elements and systems) at 4.5%, are comparatively lightly claimed. This suggests device-integration claims are dense while laser-source engineering and beam-optics approaches to annealing have more open claim space, though a full freedom-to-operate check would need a dedicated search.
Recent-year momentum data shows several of the historically largest filers, including some of the top-ranked assignees, recorded zero filings in the latest tracked year, with year-on-year changes as steep as -100% for at least two companies. Because of the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication, this drop is not yet reliable evidence that these companies have stopped filing — it may simply mean their most recent applications have not published yet. A more dependable read on current activity will require revisiting the trend once 2025-2026 data matures.
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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.