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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/magnetron-sputtering-deposition-equipment-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Vacuum & Coating EquipmentMagnetron Sputtering Deposition Equipment Patents: Who Files, What They Claim, and Where Space Remains Open
- Concentration is modest at the top. the leading assignee holds 613 records but the top 5 combined account for only 18.4% of all 9,565 records in scope — this is not a field owned by one or two players.
- Filing has cooled from its 2019 peak. activity ran from 363 records at the 2019 peak down to 217 by 2024, a -39% move from 2021's 355 to 2024's 217, though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in due to publication lag.
- Coating claims dominate, but the tail is wide. C23C coating & surface deposition covers 65.3% of records, while smaller classes like B32B layered products (3.5%) and B23B turning & boring (3.6%) show the technology reaching well beyond core deposition chambers.
9,565
Published Records
18%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-39%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (355 records) with 2024 (217) — 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 9,565 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What the magnetron sputtering patent record shows
Magnetron sputtering deposition equipment sits at the intersection of vacuum coating, semiconductor processing and hard-coating tooling, and the patent record reflects that spread. Filings under this search cover 9,565 published records dated between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, spanning target design, arc suppression, reactive sputtering control and substrate bias techniques. The technology composition data shows C23C coating & surface deposition as the dominant class by a wide margin, but meaningful volumes also sit in electron/discharge tube technology (H01J) and semiconductor devices (H01L), pointing to sputtering's role as an enabling process across several downstream industries.
Filing activity peaked in 2019 and has since declined toward the more recent, still-incomplete years — a pattern consistent with a technology that reached broad claim coverage in its core chambers and magnet assemblies before growth areas moved to adjacent applications like tooling coatings and layered products.
Filing volume by year, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Magnetron Sputtering Deposition Equipment covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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Data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 9,565-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, the composition shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
A cooling curve off a 2019 peak
Annual filings ran from 217 in 2017 up to a peak of 363 in 2019, then eased to 217 by 2024 — a -39% move from 2021's 355 over that three-year span. Treat 2025 and 2026 as undercounted: publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent years will fill in as more records publish.
Coating and semiconductor classes lead, tooling and laminates trail
C23C (coating & surface deposition) appears on 65.3% of records, well ahead of H01J (23.6%) and H01L (16.2%). Smaller but non-trivial shares sit in G11B information storage (6.1%), C22C alloys (4.0%), B23B turning & boring (3.6%) and B32B layered products (3.5%) — evidence that sputtering claims extend into data storage media, cutting-tool coatings and laminate structures well beyond the core deposition chamber.
Shares are the percentage of the 9,565 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Magnetron Sputtering Deposition Equipment covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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A representative claim and the most-cited prior art
Representative Record
US20090314631A1 — Magnetron With Electromagnets And Permanent Magnets
ANGSTROM SCIENCES, INC.
A magnet assembly for a magnetron sputtering device using circular, linear or other planar targets, combining two permanent magnets with an electromagnet positioned between them. An electrical control circuit adjusts the current level and direction to the electromagnet, altering the magnetic field across the entire target surface — including the extreme inner and outer portions — to optimize target and film uniformity on a substrate.Filed by Angstrom Sciences, Inc., published 2009-12-24.
Most-cited records in this dataset
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20070054507A1 | Method of fabricating oxide semiconductor device | 4,273 |
| 2 | US7468304B2 | Method of fabricating oxide semiconductor device | 4,022 |
| 3 | US5494494A | Integrated module multi-chamber CVD processing system and its method for processing substrates | 669 |
| 4 | US7049226B2 | Integration of ALD tantalum nitride for copper metallization | 534 |
| 5 | US20060211243A1 | Deposition system and method | 530 |
| 6 | WO2006101857A2 | A plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition system and method | 529 |
| 7 | US20060278524A1 | System and method for modulating power signals to control sputtering | 527 |
| 8 | US4981756A | Method for coated surgical instruments and tools | 526 |
| 9 | US20080026574A1 | Method and apparatus of distributed plasma processing system for conformal ion stimulated nanoscale depositio… | 519 |
| 10 | US20020104751A1 | Method and apparatus for ionized physical vapor deposition | 503 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence, not of current technical relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Magnetron Sputtering Deposition Equipment covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing or freedom-to-operate decision
Three patterns stand out once volume, concentration and citation data are read together.
Concentration
18.4%
of 9,565 records held by top 5 assignees
No single gatekeeper, but a stable core group
The leading assignee holds 613 records against a fifth-place figure of 170 and a tenth-place figure of 106 — a steep drop-off after the leader but a long, populated tail behind it. The top 10 combined reach 25.1% of all records, meaning three-quarters of the field's activity sits outside the ranked leaders entirely.
Ranking covers 100 assignees, counted in records.
Momentum
-39%
filing change, 2021 to 2024
Volume is easing off a 2019 peak, not accelerating
Annual filings ran from 355 in 2021 down to 217 in 2024. Several of the largest historical filers show flat or sharply reduced activity in the latest tracked year, which reads as consolidation of existing claim positions rather than a race for new ground.
2025-2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag.
Technology spread
65.3%
of records tagged C23C
Core coating claims are dense; adjacent classes are thinner
Coating and surface deposition (C23C) dominates the class distribution, but B23B turning & boring and B32B layered products each sit under 4% of records — comparatively open ground for claims that connect sputtering process control to specific tooling or laminate end uses.
Class shares sum to more than 100% because records carry multiple IPC codes.
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Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to magnetron sputtering deposition equipment, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Magnetron Sputtering Deposition Equipment covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span equipment makers, semiconductor toolmakers and hard-coating specialists — a mix that reflects sputtering's use across chip fabrication, data storage media and cutting-tool coatings. Co-assignee pairs in the data are mostly single-company subsidiary pairings rather than cross-industry joint filings, suggesting collaboration on this technology tends to stay inside corporate families.
Leader
613 records
records for the top-ranked assignee
A clear leader without a monopoly
The top assignee's 613 records outpace the field, but with the top 5 combined at only 18.4% of all 9,565 records, no single company controls the claim space outright.
Momentum data shows this leader down sharply in the latest tracked year.
Long tail
75%+
of records outside the top 10 assignees
Most activity sits outside the ranked leaders
With the top 10 combined at 25.1% of all records, the bulk of filing activity is distributed across smaller, less concentrated players — a sign that entry barriers around core sputtering claims are not dominated by a handful of firms.
Ranking spans 100 assignees, counted in records.
Collaboration
10 pairs
co-assignee pairings identified
Collaboration stays within corporate families
The strongest co-assignee pairs link a parent company to its own subsidiary or regional affiliate rather than connecting unrelated firms, indicating that most joint filings in this space are internal group filings rather than cross-industry partnerships.
Strongest pair recorded 50 shared filings.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 1 | -88% |
| Oerlikon Surface Solutions AG Pfäffikon | 0 | -100% |
| Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Tokyo Electron Limited | 0 | — |
| JX Nippon Mining & Metals Corporation | 0 | — |
| Walter AG | 0 | — |
| Sandvik Intellectual Property AB | 0 | — |
| Seco Tools AB | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Magnetron Sputtering Deposition Equipment covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, whitespace filing, or competitive tracking.
Check freedom-to-operate against the dense classes
With C23C carrying 65.3% of records, any new sputtering chamber or target design should be checked against that class first before broader searching.
Explore claim coverage in EurekaWatch the leader's momentum, not just its rank
The top assignee's sharp year-over-year drop suggests a shift in filing strategy worth monitoring for signs of licensing or divestment.
Track assignee activity in EurekaTest claims in the thinner tooling and laminate classes
B23B and B32B sit under 4% of records each, and may offer more workable claim space for sputtering applications tied to cutting tools or layered substrates.
Search whitespace in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Magnetron Sputtering Deposition Equipment covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about magnetron sputtering patents
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 613 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 170 and the tenth-place holder at 106. Even so, the top 5 assignees combined account for only 18.4% of all 9,565 records in scope, so no single company controls the field. The remaining activity is spread across a long tail of smaller filers, including equipment makers, semiconductor toolmakers and hard-coating specialists.
Filing peaked in 2019 at 363 records and has since eased, with a documented -39% change from 355 records in 2021 to 217 in 2024. That 2024 figure is the most recent year that can be treated as complete, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. It is accurate to describe the trend as cooling from its 2019 peak through 2024, but the 2025-2026 figures should not be read as a continued decline since they are still filling in.
Coating and surface deposition (IPC class C23C) appears on 65.3% of the 9,565 records, making it by far the dominant class. Electron and discharge tube technology (H01J) and semiconductor devices (H01L) follow at 23.6% and 16.2% respectively. Smaller shares in data storage media, alloys, tooling and layered products show the technology's reach into downstream applications beyond the core deposition chamber, though these classes carry far less filing density.
The thinnest documented classes relative to the core coating classes are turning & boring (B23B, 3.6% of records) and layered products & laminates (B32B, 3.5% of records), suggesting comparatively open claim space where sputtering process control connects to specific tooling or laminate end uses. Sub-areas like rotatable target end-block sealing, HiPIMS pulse waveform tuning and arc suppression for dielectric targets also show thinner coverage relative to the dominant coating classes. A freedom-to-operate search focused on these specific combinations, rather than the broad C23C class, is likely to surface more workable ground.
US20090314631A1, assigned to Angstrom Sciences, Inc. and published in 2009, claims a magnet assembly combining two permanent magnets with an electromagnetic coil positioned between them, with an electrical control circuit that adjusts current level and direction to alter the magnetic field across the entire sputtering target surface. The stated purpose is optimizing target and film uniformity, including at the target's extreme inner and outer portions. Because this addresses a core uniformity problem in magnetron design, later filings on adjustable-field magnet assemblies for planar targets need to be checked against its specific claim language on electromagnet-plus-permanent-magnet configurations.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Magnetron Sputtering Deposition Equipment covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.