PIC Modularity & Standardization Patents: Top Filers & Trends 2026
- Small, concentrated corpus. Just 14 patent families match design-kit and modular-library claims over PIC/silicon photonics, with filing peaking at 7 in 2022 and no growth since.
- Filing is split almost evenly across offices. EPO, US and WIPO each carry 3 filings, with Taiwan, Canada and Hong Kong adding single-digit counts — no single jurisdiction dominates.
- Design-and-simulation claims outnumber device claims. G02F optical control/modulation (8) and G06F digital design tooling (4) both sit under the G02B umbrella (14), showing PDK-style claims lean toward simulation and control layers, not just hardware.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families at the intersection of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) design and standardization tooling — process design kits, foundry PDKs, and modular photonic libraries — rather than PIC devices generally. The search combines PIC/silicon-photonics terminology with process-design-kit and standardized-building-block language, scoped to IPC classes covering optical elements, digital design processing, and semiconductor lasers.
The result is a narrow, tooling-focused corpus of 14 families published between 2015 and mid-2026. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent filing year is understated and should not be read as a decline on its own.
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Filing trend and technology composition
The filing curve and IPC mix together show a field that grew briefly, peaked, and has not sustained momentum — while the technical center of gravity sits in optical control and design tooling rather than raw device fabrication.
A single peak, then flat
Filings were absent in 2017, rose to a peak of 7 in 2022, and the midpoint year matches the peak — meaning growth stalled rather than compounded. Read the tail years as incomplete, not as evidence the field has ended.
Design tooling rivals device claims
All 14 records touch G02B (optical elements and systems), but 8 also carry G02F (optical control and modulation) and 4 carry G06F (digital data processing) — a sign that PDK-style claims frequently pair a device element with a simulation, netlist or control-layer claim rather than standing alone.
Shares are the percentage of the 14 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Photonic Integrated Circuit Modularity and Standardization with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about photonic integrated circuit modularity and standardization and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Signal propagation simulation including photonic device-to-photonic device connectivity awareness (US20250148181A1)
The filing describes a PIC design system that simulates optical signal propagation with coupling awareness, accounting for transition loss from physical-parameter mismatches — such as curvature radius or material composition — between optically coupled photonic devices. It achieves this by embedding physical data pins tied to those parameters directly into the netlist bus connecting the devices.Filed by GLOBALFOUNDRIES U.S. INC., published 2025-05-08.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2023167633A1 | A hybrid silicon photonics modulator and method to manufacture the same | 5 |
Citation counts favor older filings within any searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence, not current relevance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (1 of 1 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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With only 14 families in the corpus, this is a low-density space by patent-landscape standards — but low density does not mean open; it means claim territory is still being tested rather than settled.
Growth stalled after a single peak year
The midpoint year of the trend equals the peak year, which means filing activity did not compound after 2022 — it plateaued. Combined with the 18-month publication lag, 2025-2026 counts should be treated as provisional rather than a confirmed slowdown.
Control-layer claims dominate the device layer
More than half of the corpus pairs a G02B optical element claim with a G02F control or modulation claim, and a further four records reach into G06F digital design processing — suggesting PDK claims are increasingly written as system-level, not component-level.
No single office anchors this field
Europe, the United States and the WIPO PCT route each account for 3 filings, with Taiwan, Canada and Hong Kong contributing the remainder. That spread signals applicants are hedging jurisdiction rather than committing to one home market first.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to photonic integrated circuit modularity and standardization, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
Assignee activity in this corpus is thin enough that recent-year momentum reads as zero across the visible filers, consistent with the plateau seen in the overall trend rather than any one company's retreat.
Leading assignees show no recent-year filings
The assignees with visible momentum data — including GlobalFoundries US and Synopsys — each show zero filings in the latest tracked year, with one recording a -100% year-on-year change. This matches the corpus-wide plateau rather than indicating any single company has exited the space.
Foundry-side players file on simulation and connectivity awareness
The representative filing in this dataset, from GlobalFoundries US, targets coupling-aware signal propagation simulation — a foundry-adjacent claim style that treats the PDK itself as the invention rather than a specific photonic device.
EDA vendors are present but not accelerating
Synopsys appears among the tracked assignees, reflecting EDA-vendor interest in photonic design-kit standardization, but its latest-year filing count is flat like the rest of the corpus.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Advanced Micro Foundry Pte Ltd | 0 | -100% |
| GlobalFoundries U.S. Inc. | 0 | — |
| Synopsys, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The corpus is small enough that a single well-drafted filing could shift the landscape; the next steps are about confirming where that filing would actually sit.
Map claims against the under-claimed branches
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the gate chips above before drafting — cross-foundry interoperability and PCell versioning show low claim density but adjacent prior art.
Explore in EurekaWatch for the 2025-2026 filing catch-up
Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, re-run this landscape in a year to see whether the 2022 peak was a one-off or the start of a second wave.
Set up a monitor in EurekaCommon questions on PIC modularity and standardization patents
In this landscape, it means a filing that combines PIC or silicon-photonics subject matter with process-design-kit, standardized-building-block or modular-library language, rather than a general photonic device patent. Examples include claims on parametric cell libraries, foundry PDK structures, and design tools that simulate connectivity between modular photonic elements. This is a narrower category than PIC patents overall, which is why the corpus here is only 14 families rather than thousands.
Standardization and modularity claims are a design-methodology layer on top of device patents, and far fewer companies file at that layer compared to those filing on the underlying optical hardware. The 14-family corpus here reflects a specific search combining PIC terminology with PDK and modular-library language, filtered to IPC classes for optical elements, digital design processing, and semiconductor lasers. Broader PIC searches without the design-kit qualifier would return a substantially larger set.
The tracked assignees in this corpus include GlobalFoundries US and Synopsys, reflecting interest from both a foundry and an EDA-tooling perspective. Momentum data shows all tracked assignees at zero filings in the most recent year, which lines up with the corpus-wide plateau after a 2022 peak rather than signalling any one company has withdrawn. Given the small sample size, a single new filer could quickly change the ranking.
Filing activity peaked at 7 families in 2022 and the corpus shows no growth beyond that midpoint year, meaning the field has plateaued rather than expanded. However, publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2025-2026 figures are structurally incomplete and should not be read as a confirmed decline. A re-check in twelve to eighteen months would give a clearer read on whether filing is picking back up.
The IPC composition shows dense overlap between optical elements (G02B), optical control (G02F) and digital design processing (G06F), but adjacent areas like cross-foundry PDK interoperability, thermal-crosstalk-aware netlist modeling, and multi-die photonic-electronic co-packaging kits show comparatively little claim density. These branches sit next to occupied territory rather than inside it, which typically makes them easier to stake out with a well-drafted first claim. Any filing there should still be checked against the existing device-plus-control claim combinations common in this corpus.
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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.