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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/operational-amplifiers-and-precision-analog-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Analog & Mixed-SignalOperational Amplifier and Precision Analog Patents: Filing Trends and Who Holds the Core Claims
- Filing has cooled since its 2022 peak of 24. the 2026 count of 2 is partial but the trend was already flattening well before the cut-off.
- The top 5 assignees hold 21.0% of all 858 records. concentration is real but far from a lock — a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants fills the rest of the field.
- H03F amplifier claims cover 91.5% of records. measurement (G01R, 13.1%) and pulse/logic (H03K, 6.6%) classes appear far less often, marking where claim space is thinner.
858
Published Records
21%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-29%
3-Yr Growth (lag-adjusted)
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 858 published records filed against operational amplifiers, instrumentation amplifiers and precision analog amplifier circuits, narrowed by claim and description language around input offset voltage, chopper stabilization, noise density, rail-to-rail operation and EMI rejection, and confined to IPC classes H03F3, H03F1 and G01R19. The scope spans 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off, so the analysis favours precision correction and offset-management techniques over general amplifier topology.
Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in the trend chart understate real filing activity — treat the most recent two years as a floor, not a peak.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Operational Amplifiers and Precision Analog 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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The Data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 858-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A flattening curve since the 2022 peak
Annual filings rose from 8 in 2017 to a peak of 24 in 2022, then eased off. With 2022 as the midpoint of the observed range, the second half of the window shows no further growth — a mature filing pattern rather than an accelerating one.
Amplifier claims dominate; adjacent classes are thinner
H03F (amplifiers) appears on 91.5% of the 858 records, confirming this is fundamentally an amplifier-circuit corpus. Measurement (G01R, 13.1%), pulse/logic (H03K, 6.6%), coding (H03M, 4.7%) and semiconductor device structure (H01L, 4.4%) trail well behind — each records add to more than 100% because a single filing can carry several IPC classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 858 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 Operational Amplifiers and Precision Analog covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The most-cited records in the corpus
Representative filing
US6066986A — Integrated monolithic operational amplifier with electrically adjustable input offset voltage
CHAO; ROBERT L.
An integrated operational amplifier device provides positive and negative electrically adjustable input offset voltages via a semiconductor device that affects the amount of offset supplied to the amplifier, paired with a charge-storage device that maintains a constant offset for controlling that semiconductor device. The amplifier, the semiconductor offset-control device and the charge-storage device are fabricated on a single monolithic structure.Filed by an individual inventor (Robert L. Chao); granted 2000-05-23.
Highest-citation documents, 2015-2026 scope
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US7385443B1 | Chopper-stabilized instrumentation amplifier | 280 |
| 2 | US6002299A | High-order multipath operational amplifier with dynamic offset reduction, controlled saturation current limit… | 236 |
| 3 | US5410270A | Differential amplifier circuit having offset cancellation and method therefor | 221 |
| 4 | US5751154A | capacitive sensor interface circuit | 198 |
| 5 | US20100327887A1 | Chopper-stabilized instrumentation amplifier for impedance measurement | 166 |
| 6 | US7391257B1 | Chopper-stabilized instrumentation amplifier for impedance measurement | 127 |
| 7 | US6262625B1 | Operational amplifier with digital offset calibration | 120 |
| 8 | US6456159B1 | CMOS operational amplifier | 110 |
| 9 | US6194962B1 | Adaptive operational amplifier offset voltage trimming system | 108 |
| 10 | US20040130377A1 | Switched capacitor amplifier circuit and electronic device | 93 |
Citation counts inside this corpus skew toward older filings, which have had more time to accumulate citations — read them as a signal of influence on later designs, not of present-day 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 Operational Amplifiers and Precision Analog 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 imply for a filing strategy
Three read-outs from the trend, the assignee concentration and the IPC composition, translated into what they mean for someone deciding where to file next.
Filing momentum
Peak 24 (2022) → 2 (2026, partial)
annual filings
Volume has plateaued, not collapsed
The climb from 8 filings in 2017 to a 2022 peak of 24 was followed by a flattening rather than a further climb. Given the ~18-month publication lag, the 2025-2026 dip is partly an artefact of the data cut-off rather than proof that interest has faded.
Read the last two years as incomplete.
Concentration
21.0% held by top 5
of 858 records
A moderate lead, not a lockout
The leading assignee alone accounts for 56 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 22, yet the top 5 combined still only reach 21.0% of the 858 records in scope. Most of the field sits outside the concentrated leaders.
Top 10 combined reach 30.9% of all records.
Claim density
H03F on 91.5% of records
of 858 records
Core amplifier claims are crowded
With over nine in ten records touching H03F, new filings aimed squarely at general amplifier topology face dense prior art. Measurement-adjacent classes like G01R (13.1%) and pulse/logic classes like H03K (6.6%) are claimed far less often.
Class shares overlap — records can carry several IPC codes.
Citation influence
US7385443B1 cited 280 times
citations in corpus
Chopper-stabilization art anchors the field
The most-cited record in the corpus is a chopper-stabilized instrumentation amplifier, followed closely by offset-cancellation and dynamic-offset-reduction filings. That clustering signals offset and chopper techniques as the technical backbone later filings build on.
Older grants accumulate more citations by default.
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to operational amplifiers and precision analog, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Operational Amplifiers and Precision Analog 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 holds the ground, and where it thins out
The ranked leaders cover 100 companies across the full 858-record corpus; the leader holds 56 records, more than double the fifth-place count of 22.
Leader
56 records
families
A clear single leader
The top-ranked assignee holds more than double the record count of the fifth-place holder, giving it the deepest single portfolio in the corpus, though its recent-year filing has slowed to zero in the latest tracked year alongside several other established filers.
Recent-year momentum has flattened across the named leaders.
Mid-field
22 records (5th place)
families
A workable second tier
Places two through five sit closer together than the gap to the leader suggests, with the fifth-place holder at 22 records. This is where competitive filing decisions are most contested.
Top 5 combined: 21.0% of all 858 records.
Long tail
30.9% held by top 10
of 858 records
Most of the field is unconsolidated
Even the top 10 combined reach only 30.9% of the 858 records in scope, leaving roughly two-thirds of the corpus spread across the remaining ranked companies and unranked single-filers.
This is a fragmented field, not a duopoly.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Texas Instruments Inc. | 0 | — |
| Medtronic Inc. | 0 | — |
| Motorola Inc. | 0 | — |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
| NEC Corporation | 0 | — |
| Analog Devices Inc. | 0 | — |
| Burr-Brown Corporation | 0 | — |
| Mitsubishi Electric Corporation | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Operational Amplifiers and Precision Analog 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 analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio benchmarking or identifying open claim space.
Check freedom-to-operate against the most-cited grants
Chopper-stabilization and offset-cancellation claims anchor this field's most influential filings. Any new design touching those mechanisms should be checked against the highest-citation records before drafting.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaTrack the fragmented mid-field for acquisition signals
With two-thirds of records held outside the top 10 assignees, single- and few-filing entrants are worth monitoring individually rather than assuming the leaders set the pace.
Set up assignee tracking in EurekaProbe the under-claimed branches before filing
Measurement-adjacent and pulse/logic classes carry far fewer records than core amplifier claims, suggesting narrower prior art to design around in those branches.
Explore white space in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Operational Amplifiers and Precision Analog 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 this landscape
Within this 858-record corpus, one assignee leads with 56 records, more than double the fifth-place holder's 22. The top 5 assignees combined hold 21.0% of all records, and the top 10 combined reach 30.9%, which means most of the filing activity sits outside the concentrated leaders. This is a fragmented field with a clear but not dominant leader, so competitive tracking should extend well past the top names.
Filing rose from 8 records in 2017 to a peak of 24 in 2022, then flattened rather than continuing to climb. The 2025 and 2026 figures look low, but publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent one to two years understate actual activity. Taken together, the pattern reads as a mature, plateaued filing area rather than one in decline or in a growth phase.
H03F, the amplifier circuits class, appears on 91.5% of the 858 records in scope, confirming that core amplifier topology and offset/noise correction techniques are the densest claim territory. Measurement-related claims (G01R) appear on 13.1% of records, and pulse/logic circuits (H03K) on 6.6%, both considerably thinner. Because a single filing can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add to more than 100% and should not be read as mutually exclusive categories.
US6066986A claims a monolithic operational amplifier with an electrically adjustable input offset voltage, implemented through a semiconductor device that sets the offset and a charge-storage device that holds that offset constant during operation. All three elements — amplifier, offset-control semiconductor, and charge storage — are fabricated on a single monolithic structure, which is the specific architectural constraint in the claim. Anyone designing an integrated offset-trim amplifier should check this filing's claim scope directly rather than assume the general technique is unclaimed.
The IPC composition shows amplifier claims are dense while adjacent branches — measurement circuits, pulse/logic techniques, coding, and semiconductor device structure — carry meaningfully fewer records. Sub-areas such as chopper-stabilized impedance sensing, dynamic offset reduction for multipath amplifier stages, and rail-to-rail EMI rejection at low supply voltages show comparatively thin claim coverage relative to the amplifier core. These are reasonable starting points for a novelty search, though thinner filing density should be confirmed against a fresh claim search before relying on it as open space.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Operational Amplifiers and Precision Analog 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.