Rapid Thermal Processing Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- One assignee dominates the founding claims. the leader holds 71 records against a fifth-place count of 6 and a tenth-place count of 4 — a steep drop after the top of the ranking.
- Filing activity peaked in 2022 and has not returned. annual filings ran from 4 in 2017 to a high of 6 in 2022, with the most recent year showing 0 — a sign of either a plateau or reporting lag, not necessarily retreat.
- Claims cluster tightly in H01L and H10P. 92.0% of the 125 records in scope carry an H01L class and 71.2% carry H10P, leaving measurement- and furnace-adjacent classes far thinner.
What this patent set covers
Rapid thermal processing (RTP) and anneal equipment patents describe the hardware and control methods used to heat and cool semiconductor wafers in seconds to milliseconds — lamp arrays, pyrometry for non-contact temperature sensing, and the algorithms that compensate for pattern effect and within-wafer uniformity during a ramp. This search set spans 125 published records filed between 2015 and 2026 under IPC classes covering semiconductor devices, furnaces, and electric heating circuits, filtered to documents that explicitly discuss temperature ramp rate, pyrometry, pattern effect, within-wafer uniformity or millisecond anneal in their title or claims.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent year in the trend below is necessarily incomplete — treat the final data point as a floor, not a peak or a trough.
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Filing trends and technology composition
The trend line and the IPC breakdown below are both drawn from the same 125-record set, so they can be read together: a flat filing curve against a concentrated technology base points to a field where the core method has settled and activity now sits in refinements.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Annual filings moved from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 6 in 2022, then declined; the most recent year shows 0, which given the 18-month publication lag likely understates true filing activity rather than signalling an abrupt stop.
IPC subclass composition
H01L (semiconductor devices) appears in 92.0% of the 125 records and H10P in 71.2%, confirming the core is device-and-process claims; G01J (radiation and light measurement, 20.8%), F27D and F27B (furnace details, 16.8% and 12.8%) and C23C (coating, 12.0%) form a thinner secondary layer, and C30B (crystal growth, 6.4%) is the smallest branch tracked.
Shares are the percentage of the 125 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Rapid Thermal Processing and Anneal Equipment with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about rapid thermal processing and anneal equipment and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe founding claims and the most-cited prior art
EP1809111A2 — Low-temperature pyrometry method and apparatus for thermal processing of silicon wafers
A rapid thermal processing (RTP) system including a transmission pyrometer monitoring the temperature-dependent absorption of a silicon wafer for radiation from the RTP lamps at reduced power. A look-up table relates unnormalized photodetector photocurrents to wafer and lamp temperatures; a calibrating step measures photocurrent at known temperatures, and subsequent measurements are normalized against it. The pyrometer supports closed-loop control below 500°C or serves the pre-heating phase of a higher-temperature process.Filed by Applied Materials, Inc., published 2007-07-25.
View full filing| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5937142A | Multi-zone illuminator for rapid thermal processing | 485 |
| 2 | US5790750A | Profiled substrate heating utilizing a support temperature and a substrate temperature | 452 |
| 3 | US20060228897A1 | Rapid thermal processing using energy transfer layers | 315 |
| 4 | US5131752A | Method for film thickness endpoint control | 242 |
| 5 | US5650082A | Profiled substrate heating | 142 |
| 6 | US5861609A | Method and apparatus for rapid thermal processing | 134 |
| 7 | US20050191044A1 | Backside rapid thermal processing of patterned wafers | 105 |
| 8 | US4984902A | Apparatus and method for compensating for errors in temperature measurement of semiconductor wafers during ra… | 100 |
| 9 | US6198074B1 | System and method for rapid thermal processing with transitional heater | 92 |
| 10 | US5715361A | Rapid thermal processing high-performance multizone illuminator for wafer backside heating | 85 |
Citation counts favour older documents inside any searched corpus — read them as a measure of influence on later filings, not as a ranking of current commercial relevance.
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 stand out once the ranking, the trend and the class breakdown are read side by side.
One assignee set the pyrometry baseline early
The leader's record count of 71 against a fifth-place count of 6 shows most of the enabling patents in transmission and reflectance pyrometry, lamp control and pattern-effect compensation trace back to a single filer's programme rather than a broad field of independent inventors.
Filing has plateaued since its 2022 peak
Annual filings never exceeded 6 in any year of this dataset and the most recent year shows 0. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, that zero is best read as pipeline not yet published rather than a confirmed halt.
Claims sit overwhelmingly in device and process classes
With 92.0% of records carrying an H01L class and 71.2% carrying H10P, the bulk of activity is in semiconductor device and process claims. Measurement (G01J, 20.8%) and furnace hardware (F27D/F27B, 16.8%/12.8%) are present but far thinner, suggesting the equipment periphery is less contested than the core method.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to rapid thermal processing and anneal equipment, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Applied Materials, Inc. | HUNTER AARON M | 7 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | LERNER ALEXANDER N | 4 |
| HUNTER AARON M | LERNER ALEXANDER N | 4 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | RAMANUJAM RAJESH S | 3 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | LI JIPING | 3 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | HAW THOMAS | 3 |
| HUNTER AARON M | RAMANUJAM RAJESH S | 3 |
| HUNTER AARON M | LI JIPING | 3 |
The strongest co-assignee pairing in this set links the leading corporate filer with two named individual inventors, appearing together on 7 and 4 records respectively — consistent with an internal inventor team rather than a cross-company collaboration.
Who holds the ground, and where it thins out
The ranked leaders span 36 companies, but the distribution is steep: the leader's 71 records dwarf the fifth-place count of 6 and the tenth-place count of 4, leaving a long tail of single- or double-digit filers.
A dominant equipment incumbent
The top-ranked assignee's record count sets it apart from the rest of the field by a wide margin, consistent with a company that built the pyrometry and lamp-control baseline the rest of the field designs around.
A cluster of established equipment makers
Places behind the leader hold single-digit record counts each, reflecting specialist RTP and thermal-products firms that have filed steadily rather than in bursts.
Individual inventors and smaller entrants
By tenth place, counts have dropped to 4, and the ranking includes named individual inventors alongside corporate filers — a sign that some of the foundational IP sits with people who later assigned or licensed it rather than filed under a company name from the outset.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 0 | — |
| STEAG RTP Systems | 0 | — |
| Mattson Technology, Inc. | 0 | — |
| HUNTER AARON M | 0 | — |
| Axcelis Technologies, Inc. | 0 | — |
| TIMANS PAUL J | 0 | — |
| LERNER ALEXANDER N | 0 | — |
| CVC Products, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing, or identifying a filing gap.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's portfolio
With 71 records concentrated in one assignee, any new pyrometry or lamp-control filing should be checked against that portfolio specifically, not just the field average.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaWatch for the delayed 2025-2026 filings to surface
The flat-to-zero recent-year trend is likely a publication-lag artefact; re-pull the trend in six to twelve months before concluding the field has gone quiet.
Set a filing alert in EurekaProbe the thinner IPC branches for open claims
Crystal growth (C30B, 6.4%) and coating overlap (C23C, 12.0%) carry the lowest record shares in this set and warrant a targeted search before assuming they are occupied.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about RTP and anneal equipment patents
One assignee holds a clearly dominant position in this dataset, with 71 records compared with 6 at fifth place and 4 at tenth place among the 36 companies in the ranking. That gap indicates the foundational pyrometry, lamp-array and uniformity-control methods are concentrated in a single company's portfolio rather than spread evenly across the field. Anyone entering this space should treat that leader's filings as the first freedom-to-operate check, not just one input among many.
Based on this dataset, filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 6 in 2022 and have since declined, with the most recent year showing 0. Because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, that final year almost certainly understates real activity rather than confirming a stop. The honest read is a plateau since 2022 rather than clear growth or clear decline.
The records in this set are classified predominantly under H01L (semiconductor devices, 92.0% of 125 records) and H10P (71.2%), with secondary coverage in G01J for radiation and light measurement (20.8%), F27D and F27B for furnace hardware (16.8% and 12.8%), C23C for coating (12.0%) and C30B for crystal growth (6.4%). Because a single record can carry multiple classes, these percentages sum to well over 100% and should not be read as a breakdown of the full 125 records into exclusive buckets.
EP1809111A2, filed by Applied Materials, describes a transmission pyrometer system that uses a calibrated look-up table to normalize photodetector readings against known wafer and lamp temperatures, enabling closed-loop control below 500°C or supporting pre-heating in higher-temperature processes. It is a specific calibration-and-normalization method, not a blanket claim on pyrometry as a measurement technique. A new design that avoids the specific look-up-table calibration step, or that operates exclusively above the 500°C closed-loop range described, has room to argue around it, though a full claim-by-claim comparison against the granted claims is needed before relying on that.
The thinnest branches by record share in this dataset are C30B (crystal growth, 6.4% of 125 records) and C23C (coating, 12.0%), suggesting fewer filings at the intersection of rapid thermal anneal and crystal growth or deposition processes. Furnace accessory instrumentation under F27D (16.8%) is also comparatively lighter than the core H01L and H10P classes. These lower counts do not guarantee an open claim, but they are a reasonable starting point for a focused prior-art search before committing to a new filing.
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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.