PERC Solar Cell Materials Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Filings peaked in 2021 at 21 and have not returned to that level since. the midpoint year sits at 7, and the trend line reads flat-to-declining rather than growing.
- China dominates the filing venue, with 80 of 124 families routed through CNIPA. the US, EPO, WIPO and India together account for the rest, a much thinner international footprint than the domestic one.
- Every tracked assignee shows zero filings in the latest year. that is partly a publication-lag artefact, but it also means recent momentum cannot yet be assigned to any single leader.
Filing growth compares 2021 (21 records) with 2024 (1) — 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 124 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
PERC — passivated emitter and rear contact — cell design depends on a small set of material choices: the dielectric stack that passivates the rear surface (AlOx and SiNx), and the metallisation paste that forms the front and rear electrodes (silver paste, increasingly formulated to reduce silver loading or improve contact to lightly doped emitters). This dataset isolates patent families that combine PERC-specific language with claims naming these materials directly, rather than the cell architecture in general.
The 124 families span filings from 2015 through the current data cut-off, concentrated overwhelmingly in the H01L semiconductor-device and H01B conductor/insulator subclasses, with smaller but consistent activity in glass-frit chemistry (C03C) and powder metallurgy (B22F) — both directly relevant to silver paste formulation.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 124-family set: how filing activity moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A peak in 2021, no clear recovery since
Filings rose from 14 in 2017 to a peak of 21 in 2021, then eased back toward the midpoint value of 7 in 2022. Recent years read low partly because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months — the final 2025–2026 bars will fill in as those applications publish — but the shape since 2021 is a plateau, not a climb.
Concentrated in two subclasses, with a materials-chemistry tail
H01L (semiconductor devices) and H01B (conductors and insulators) between them cover most of the corpus, which tracks the two things this search targets: cell/device claims and paste/conductor claims. C03C (glass compositions) and B22F (powder metallurgy) are smaller but point to where formulation-level chemistry claims — glass frit, metal powder blends — actually live, distinct from the device claims above them.
Shares are the percentage of the 124 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on PERC Solar Cell Advanced Materials with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about perc solar cell advanced materials and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this corpus
PERC solar cell selective emitter, PERC solar cell and manufacturing method therefor
A PERC solar cell selective emitter includes a silicon wafer, first and second doped regions and a laser doped region with doped layers. First doped regions are located between the doped regions of each doped layer, and each second doped region is located between two adjacent doped layers. The PERC solar cell includes the selective emitter, a front anti-reflective layer on the surface of a front passivation layer, and a positive electrode. The positive electrode includes first silver paste layers on the surfaces of the laser doped regions and second silver paste layers on the surface of the front anti-reflective layer corresponding to the first doped regions.Filed by Tongwei Solar (Chengdu) Co., Ltd. — one of several Tongwei entities active in this dataset, alongside its Anhui, Hefei, Jintang and Meishan subsidiaries.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN109659066A | 一种用于制备PERC硅太阳能电池的正面银浆 | 19 |
| 2 | WO2011066300A1 | Process for the formation of a silver back electrode of a passivated emitter and rear contact silicon solar c… | 17 |
| 3 | CN109378108A | 用于perc晶体硅太阳能电池的正银浆料及制法 | 15 |
| 4 | CN106782759A | 一种用于PERC晶体硅太阳能电池的背面银浆及其制备方法 | 15 |
| 5 | CN111499208A | 单晶硅太阳能电池正面银浆用玻璃料及其制备方法与应用 | 13 |
| 6 | CN110364286A | 一种单晶双面PERC电池背面电极银浆及其制备方法 | 13 |
| 7 | CN109087965A | 一种背面钝化的晶体硅太阳能电池及其制备方法 | 12 |
| 8 | CN108231917A | 一种PERC太阳能电池及其制备方法 | 12 |
| 9 | CN107240436A | 一种PERC晶体硅太阳能电池正银浆料及其制备方法 | 12 |
| 10 | CN106067331A | 一种太阳能背钝化PERC电池背电极用银浆 | 12 |
Citation counts favour older filings within a searched corpus — they measure influence on later applicants, not current technical importance. All five most-cited records here are silver-paste formulations or electrode-formation processes, not passivation-layer chemistry.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns worth acting on rather than just noting.
The plateau argues against a first-mover story now
Filing activity peaked in 2021 and eased toward the 2022 midpoint of 7. A technology with declining filing counts is not necessarily declining in commercial relevance — PERC remains a mainstream mainstream cell architecture — but the patent claim space around its materials was staked out earlier in the decade, not now.
Enforcement leverage outside China is thin
With only 18 US, 11 EPO and 6 WIPO filings against 80 China filings, most of this claim space has no counterpart protection outside China. A freedom-to-operate check that stops at CNIPA will miss real exposure, but a check that stops at the USPTO or EPO will substantially understate it.
Silver paste formulation is the most litigated-by-citation ground
Every one of the five most-cited records in this corpus is a silver-paste composition or electrode-formation process, not an AlOx or SiNx passivation claim. That is a signal of where prior applicants built on each other's work most heavily, which is exactly where a new paste formulation is most likely to run into cited-back prior art.
Filings cluster inside corporate families, not across them
The strongest co-assignee link — 17 shared families between two Aiko Solar entities — plus a 6-family Tongwei-to-Tongwei pair, shows collaboration in this dataset is mostly intra-group (parent/subsidiary or sister-plant filings) rather than joint ventures between unrelated companies.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to perc solar cell advanced materials, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The assignee ranking is concentrated among a small group of Chinese cell manufacturers and material suppliers, with a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants. Recent-year momentum data shows every tracked leader at zero filings in the latest year, which reflects publication lag as much as any real pullback.
Aiko's two entities file as a tightly linked pair
Guangdong Aiko Solar Technology Co., Ltd. (Guangdong Aiko Solar Technology) and Zhejiang Aiko Solar Technology Co., Ltd. (Zhejiang Aiko Solar Technology) share 17 co-assigned families, the strongest co-assignee link in this dataset — a parent/subsidiary filing pattern rather than an external partnership.
Tongwei files through several plant-level entities
通威太阳能(成都), (安徽), (合肥), (金堂) and (眉山) all appear as separate filing entities, with the Anhui–Hefei pair sharing 6 co-assigned families. This plant-by-plant filing structure spreads the same underlying R&D across multiple named assignees.
DuPont's US paste chemistry links to a named inventor
E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (USA) (DuPont de Nemours) shares 5 co-assigned families with an individually named inventor (PRINCE ALISTAIR GRAEME), pointing to silver-paste formulation work filed jointly rather than solely under the corporate assignee.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Guangdong Aiko Solar Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Zhejiang Aiko Solar Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (USA) | 0 | — |
| Hengdian Group DMEGC Magnetics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Tongwei Solar (Chengdu) Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Tongwei Solar (Anhui) Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Tongwei Solar (Hefei) Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Haining Ruiyin Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this
Two directions depend on what the reader needs to decide next.
Check freedom-to-operate beyond China
With 80 of 124 families filed only through CNIPA, a China-only clearance search will overstate coverage elsewhere. Run the same claim language against the smaller US, EPO and WIPO subsets before assuming clear ground in those jurisdictions.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in EurekaMap the silver-paste citation network
The five most-cited records are all paste formulations or electrode-formation processes. Before filing a new paste composition claim, trace what each of those records cites and is cited by to see exactly which formulation variables are already claimed.
Explore citation mapping in EurekaCommon questions about PERC materials patents
Most claims in this space fall into two groups: dielectric passivation stack materials, principally AlOx and SiNx layers deposited on the rear surface, and metallisation paste materials, principally silver paste formulations used for front and rear electrodes. A smaller group of claims covers supporting chemistry such as glass frit used in paste sintering and powder-metallurgy approaches to electrode formation. The IPC composition of this dataset — heavily weighted to H01L and H01B with a smaller C03C and B22F tail — reflects that split directly.
The most-cited records in this corpus are silver-paste compositions and electrode-formation processes rather than passivation-layer claims, and the assignee base is concentrated among a small number of Chinese cell manufacturers and materials suppliers alongside international players such as DuPont. Rather than a single dominant holder, the pattern is a cluster of closely related corporate entities — for example the linked Aiko Solar and Tongwei filing groups — each contributing multiple families. Checking co-assignee links is more informative here than looking at any single company's raw count.
Not on the evidence here. Filings rose to a peak of 21 in 2021 and had fallen back toward a midpoint value of 7 by 2022, and the trend since reads flat to declining. Some of the most recent years are understated because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, but the multi-year plateau predates that lag effect and is a genuine feature of the data, not an artefact of it.
Eighty of the 124 families in this dataset were filed through CNIPA, far more than the US, EPO, WIPO, India and Germany combined. This tracks the geography of PERC cell manufacturing, which is concentrated among Chinese producers and their domestic material suppliers. It means a large share of the claim space has no filed counterpart outside China, which matters for anyone assessing enforcement risk or freedom to operate in a specific export market.
The device-level and mainstream silver-paste claims are the most densely filed areas, but formulation-specific branches such as low-silver or silver-clad paste alternatives, glass-frit chemistry tuned for fine-line printing, and refractive-index grading within SiNx layers show comparatively thin representation. That does not guarantee those areas are unpatented elsewhere, but relative to the core claim density in this corpus they are under-claimed and worth a dedicated novelty search before committing to a filing strategy there.
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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.