PERC Solar Cell Passivation Layer Patent Landscape 2026
- Filing already peaked. 2017 was the high-water mark at 18 families; the count has fallen to flat or zero every year since, including a 2022 midpoint of 0.
- Two Chinese affiliates anchor the field together. Zhejiang Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd. and Guangdong Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd. co-file as a pair 23 times — by far the strongest link in the co-assignee network.
- Claims cluster in one IPC lane. All 42 families sit in H01L, with C23C coating claims layered on top in 17 of them — the deposition step is where the crowding is.
Filing growth compares 2021 (2 records) with 2024 (0) — 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.
A narrow, already-peaked filing window
PERC rear-surface passivation — the AlOx and SiNx capping stack that gives passivated emitter and rear contact cells their efficiency gain over standard aluminium back surface field designs — produced a concentrated but short filing wave. The search string used here isolates 42 published families across IPC classes H01L31/0216, H01L31/068 and H01L31/18, filed between 2015 and the present cut-off. Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 18 families and has since gone flat, with the 2022 midpoint sitting at zero.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one or two years in any trend line will understate real activity — but even allowing for that lag, the decline from the 2017 peak is steep enough that it is unlikely to be a reporting artefact alone. The dataset points to a technology whose core claim space was staked out early and has not been substantially reopened.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 42-family set: when the claims were filed, and which IPC subclasses they touch.
Filing trend: a single sharp peak
2017 is the peak year at 18 families; by the 2022 midpoint the annual count had fallen to 0, and it stays at or near zero through to the 2026 partial year. This is not a technology still building toward a peak — the peak has already passed.
IPC composition: one core class, one adjacent one
Every one of the 42 families sits in H01L (semiconductor devices), the core class for the cell structure itself. C23C (coating & surface deposition) appears in 17 records, marking the AlOx/SiNx deposition step as the second-most-claimed layer. H10P appears in 13, C03C in 3, and H01J in a single record — a long tail of adjacent classes with little independent weight.
Shares are the percentage of the 42 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 Passivation Layer with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about perc solar cell passivation layer and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaWhat the most-cited records establish
Bifacial p-type PERC solar cell and module, system, and preparation method thereof (US20190259887A1)
Discloses a bifacial P-type PERC cell built from a rear silver electrode, rear aluminium grid lines, a rear surface passivation layer, P-type silicon, an N-type emitter, a front silicon nitride film and a front silver electrode. The rear passivation layer carries a laser-grooved region arranged as multiple horizontal sets of grooving units, through which the rear aluminium grid lines contact the P-type silicon.Filed by Guangdong Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd., published 2019-08-22.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20200058817A1 | Bifacial tube-type PERC solar cell, preparation method thereof, and production device therefor | 11 |
| 2 | CN106057971A | 一种高效晶硅PERC电池的制备方法 | 10 |
| 3 | US20200212242A1 | Monofacial tube-type PERC solar cell, preparation method thereof, and production device therefor | 9 |
| 4 | CN109244182A | 一种黑硅PERC双面电池及其制作方法 | 6 |
| 5 | US20200075782A1 | PERC solar cell capable of improving photoelectric conversion efficiency and preparation method thereof | 6 |
| 6 | US20200199746A1 | Coating device and coating method for tube-type PERC solar cell | 6 |
| 7 | CN110993728A | 一种红外激光退火的单晶硅SE-PERC电池的制造方法 | 5 |
| 8 | WO2012143460A2 | Method for manufacturing a solar cell | 5 |
| 9 | US20190259887A1 | Bifacial p-type PERC solar cell and module, system, and preparation method thereof | 4 |
| 10 | CN111341885A | 一种正面无副栅的单晶PERC电池制备方法 | 2 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings; treat this as a signal of influence on later claim drafting, not a ranking of current commercial importance.
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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What the trend, the citation table and the receiving-office spread each imply for a filing decision.
The peak has passed
Annual filings ran at 18 in 2017 and had fallen to 0 by the 2022 midpoint. Even discounting the most recent years for publication lag, this is a technology whose core claim space was staked out in a short window rather than one still accumulating filings.
Influence sits with early bifacial and tube-type designs
The most-cited records are bifacial and tube-type PERC process patents from Chinese and US-published families, several sharing near-identical claim language across paired filings. Citation weight in this corpus favours the earliest movers, not necessarily the most commercially deployed design.
Europe and the US lead filing venue, India a distant third
EPO carries the largest share of receiving-office filings at 13, ahead of the United States at 11. India (5), WIPO/PCT (5), China (4) and Germany (2) trail well behind — a spread that suggests protection was sought broadly rather than concentrated in the manufacturing home markets alone.
One manufacturing pair dominates the collaboration graph
Zhejiang Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd. and Guangdong Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd. co-assign 23 times, dwarfing every other pair in the dataset, including the two Fraunhofer-linked pairs at 4 each. The network is a hub-and-spoke around one corporate group rather than a dense cross-industry collaboration web.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to perc solar cell passivation layer, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Zhejiang Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd. | Guangdong Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd. | 23 |
| Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. | MOSCHNER JENS DIRK | 4 |
| Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. | MEYER CHRISTINE | 4 |
| Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. | GASSENBAUER YVONNE | 4 |
| MOSCHNER JENS DIRK | MEYER CHRISTINE | 4 |
| MOSCHNER JENS DIRK | GASSENBAUER YVONNE | 4 |
| MEYER CHRISTINE | GASSENBAUER YVONNE | 4 |
| Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. | ROTH PETER | 2 |
Co-filing is dominated by one affiliated manufacturing pair; Fraunhofer-linked individual inventors form a smaller, separate cluster.
Who holds the claim space
Filing and momentum data point to a small set of repeat assignees, with almost no fresh activity in the latest tracked year.
Zhejiang Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd.
The strongest single relationship in the dataset — this assignee co-files with its Guangdong affiliate 23 times, well ahead of any other pair, indicating a coordinated group filing strategy around the same underlying cell designs.
Guangdong Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd.
Paired consistently with its Zhejiang affiliate, this assignee's filing activity has gone quiet in the most recent tracked year, consistent with the broader flat-to-declining trend across the whole dataset.
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
Fraunhofer's applied-research arm appears twice in the co-assignee table, paired separately with named inventors MOSCHNER JENS DIRK and MEYER CHRISTINE at 4 filings each — a smaller, inventor-led cluster distinct from the Chinese manufacturing hub.
GASSENBAUER YVONNE
Appears in the recent-momentum tracking alongside the Fraunhofer-linked names, with no filings recorded in the latest year — reinforcing that even the research-institute side of this field has gone quiet.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Zhejiang Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Guangdong Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. | 0 | — |
| MOSCHNER JENS DIRK | 0 | — |
| MEYER CHRISTINE | 0 | — |
| GASSENBAUER YVONNE | 0 | — |
| AVALON SOLAR TECH PTY LTD | 0 | -100% |
| Kaneka Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The filing record answers what has already been claimed. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means testing specific claim language against your own design.
Map your own passivation stack against the crowded lane
With every family sitting in H01L and 17 of 42 also in C23C, a new AlOx/SiNx design should be checked claim-by-claim against that overlap before drafting, not just against the headline IPC code.
Run a claim comparison in Patsnap EurekaWatch the Aiko pairing for renewed activity
A 23-strong co-filing relationship that has gone to zero in the latest year is either dormant or about to resume; either way it is the single relationship worth monitoring for early signals.
Set up assignee monitoring in Patsnap EurekaTest the under-claimed sub-areas for freedom to operate
Thin filing density in glass-substrate compatibility or laser-groove geometry does not guarantee open space — it means the search has to go deeper than the core IPC codes.
Explore white space in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions on PERC passivation patents
A standard aluminium back surface field (Al-BSF) cell relies on a full-area aluminium layer alloyed into the rear silicon to reduce recombination. PERC cells instead insert a dielectric passivation layer — typically AlOx capped with SiNx — across most of the rear surface, with the aluminium contacting the silicon only through laser-opened openings. This reduces rear-surface recombination and improves internal reflection, which is why the patent claims in this dataset concentrate on the passivation stack and the laser-groove contact geometry rather than on the aluminium layer itself.
The filing-trend data shows 18 families in 2017 falling to 0 by the 2022 midpoint. This pattern typically means the core claim space — the basic AlOx/SiNx stack, the laser-groove contact method, and the main process variants — was staked out early by a small number of manufacturers, after which further filing offered diminishing returns. Publication lag of roughly 18 months means the most recent one or two years are understated, but the decline is steep enough to reflect a genuine slowdown in new claim activity, not just a reporting gap.
The co-assignee data shows Zhejiang Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (Zhejiang Aiko Solar Energy Technology) and its affiliate Guangdong Aiko Solar Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (Guangdong Aiko Solar Energy Technology) as by far the strongest filing pair, co-assigning 23 times. Fraunhofer's applied-research arm forms a separate, smaller cluster with named inventors MOSCHNER JENS DIRK and MEYER CHRISTINE, each linked at 4 co-filings. Both groups show zero filings in the most recent tracked year, consistent with the overall flat trend.
US20190259887A1, assigned to Guangdong Aiko Solar Energy Technology and published in 2019, claims a bifacial P-type PERC cell with a rear surface passivation layer that is laser-grooved into multiple horizontal sets of grooving units, through which rear aluminium grid lines contact the P-type silicon. It does not block passivation chemistry generally, but any design using a similarly patterned, horizontally-arranged multi-set laser-groove contact geometry through a rear passivation layer should be checked against this claim specifically. Designs using different groove patterns, contact geometries, or non-laser opening methods sit outside its literal scope.
The IPC composition shows heavy concentration in H01L and C23C, with only 3 records in C03C (glass and enamel compositions) and 1 in H01J (electron and discharge tubes), suggesting glass-substrate compatibility work and electron-beam-assisted deposition methods are thinly claimed relative to the core stack. Field-effect passivation charge control and tube-furnace AlOx deposition uniformity also show limited independent filing density in this dataset. None of this guarantees open freedom to operate — it means a deeper search beyond the core IPC codes is needed before filing 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.