SiC Functional Safety Patent Landscape 2026
The SiC functional safety patent space is concentrated, with Infineon Technologies AG holding the largest share and the top five filers accounting for half of the hundred largest filers’ combined output. The field reached its annual peak in 2022 and has since plateaued, with multi-year growth remaining modestly positive while the most recent filing years remain undercounted due to publication lag.
Infineon leads a concentrated, maturing field
Infineon Technologies AG ranks first among all applicants, followed by Semicon Components Industries (onsemi), Micron Technology, Applied Materials, and Panasonic Holdings — together these five filers account for half of the hundred largest filers’ combined patent records.
The tier gap between the top five and the remainder is significant: the sixth-ranked applicant, Nanjing NARI Group, holds three patent records, already a steep drop from the leader’s eleven. Below rank six, most applicants hold only one or two records, indicating a long tail with limited individual depth.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Infineon Technologies AG | 11 | |
| 2 | Semiconductor Components Industries LLC (onsemi) | 10 | |
| 3 | Micron Technology Inc | 9 | |
| 4 | Applied Materials Inc | 8 | |
| 5 | Panasonic Holdings Corporation | 4 | |
| 6 | Nanjing NARI Group Corporation | 3 | |
| 7 | China EPRI Electric Power Engineering Co Ltd | 2 | |
| 8 | CHINA EPRI SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY CO LTD | 2 | |
| 9 | Renesas Electronics Corporation | 2 | |
| 10 | Heilongjiang Huixin Semiconductor Co Ltd | 2 |
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Southeast University | 2 | |
| 12 | Zhejiang University of Technology | 1 | |
| 13 | Chery Automobile Co Ltd | 1 | |
| 14 | Anhui Polytechnic University | 1 | |
| 15 | Jihua Laboratory | 1 | |
| 16 | Dalian Maritime University | 1 | |
| 17 | Harbin Institute of Technology | 1 | |
| 18 | Nanjing Switchgear Factory | 1 | |
| 19 | Henan Jia Chen Intelligent Control Co Ltd | 1 | |
| 20 | State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co Ltd | 1 |
Infineon’s position at the top, combined with onsemi and Applied Materials in the leading tier, signals that established power-semiconductor and process-equipment incumbents have staked out the core IP positions, leaving challengers to concentrate on narrower sub-domains or adjacent process branches.
Filing counts for 2024–2026 should be treated as lower bounds given typical patent publication lag of 18–24 months; the apparent slowdown in those years does not necessarily reflect a real reduction in inventive activity.
Activity peaked in 2022; semiconductor device IP dominates the technology mix
Two views of the corpus reveal a field that expanded rapidly from 2018 through 2022 and has since stabilised, while its technology composition is anchored in semiconductor device structures with protective circuit arrangements as the second-largest branch.
Annual filing trend
Filings were negligible in 2017, grew steadily to a peak of ten records in 2022, and have eased to eight in 2023 and seven in 2024; 2025–2026 counts are materially undercounted due to publication lag and should not be read as a continuation of decline.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H01L (semiconductor devices) is the dominant branch with 44 records, followed by H02H (protective circuit arrangements) at 31 and H10D (semiconductor devices, general) at 18; coating and surface deposition (C23C), static memories (G11C), pulse technique (H03K), H10P, and power conversion (H02M) each account for fewer than ten records, marking them as comparatively sparse branches within the corpus.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Semiconductor power module with SIC power diodes a…
A semiconductor power module has at least one power semiconductor chip (<b>2</b>) which can be controlled by the field effect and has a plurality of fail-safe, small-area SiC power diodes (D<sub>1 </sub>to D<sub>8</sub>). The function of a large-area SiC power diode chip which is susceptible to failure is distributed over these small-area… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Method of decreasing the K value in SiOC layer dep… | 362 |
| 2 | Semiconductor device and its manufacturing method | 59 |
| 3 | Method of decreasing the K value in SIOC layer dep… | 37 |
| 4 | Semiconductor device with a plurality of semicondu… | 30 |
| 5 | 三电平一体式SiC-Mosfet驱动系统及驱动控制方法 | 18 |
| 6 | 多级降栅压型SiC-MOSFET驱动电路 | 17 |
| 7 | 3D stacked integrated circuits having functional b… | 14 |
| 8 | Short-circuit performance for silicon carbide semi… | 13 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the structure means for R&D investment
The combination of a maturing filing curve, high incumbent concentration, active. China-based collaboration, and a US-dominant filing geography shapes where new entrants can realistically differentiate.
Field has plateaued near its 2022 peak
The lifecycle stage is Maturity: annual filings have plateaued near their peak year of 2022, and the four-year window shows only modest positive growth of four percent. This implies the foundational semiconductor device and protective circuit IP landscape is substantially mapped; incremental patents now require tighter technical differentiation to avoid crowded prior art.
MaturingFive incumbents hold half the top-100 filers’ output
The top five filers — Infineon Technologies AG, onsemi (Semicon Components Industries), Micron Technology, Applied Materials, and Panasonic Holdings — account for fifty percent of the hundred largest filers’ combined patent records. The long tail below rank five is thin, suggesting limited depth among challengers and a window for focused accumulation in under-served sub-domains.
High concentrationNARI Group cluster is the only identified co-filing network
The most active co-filing relationships are within the NARI ecosystem: Nanjing NARI Group co-filed with both China EPRI Science & Technology and China EPRI Electric Power Engineering (two records each), and also with Nanjing NARI Relay (one record). No cross-border or cross-sector co-filing pairs appear in evidence, suggesting that collaborative IP development is currently concentrated in a single Chinese state-affiliated industrial group.
Cluster collaborationUS leads filings; China is a strong secondary jurisdiction
The United States is the lead filing jurisdiction with 38 patent records, with China second at 32. European Patent Office coverage stands at only four records, and South Korea and Taiwan each hold one. The US-China duopoly in filing volume reflects the geographic home bases of the dominant applicants, while the thin EPO presence suggests limited strategic filing in Europe relative to the technology’s relevance to automotive and industrial power markets there.
US-China duopolyGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| Nanjing NARI Group Corporation | China EPRI Science & Technology Co Ltd | 2 |
| Nanjing NARI Group Corporation | China EPRI Electric Power Engineering Co Ltd | 2 |
| China EPRI Science & Technology Co Ltd | China EPRI Electric Power Engineering Co Ltd | 2 |
| Nanjing NARI Group Corporation | Nanjing NARI Relay Electric Co Ltd | 1 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Infineon and onsemi lead on semiconductor device structures; NARI leads on protective circuits
The leader tier splits between Western power-semiconductor specialists focused on device structures and a Chinese state-affiliated cluster concentrated on protective circuit arrangements and gate-driver logic.
Infineon Technologies AG
Infineon leads with eleven patent records and is classified as a new entrant in the recent filing window, indicating its SiC functional safety portfolio is a recently active expansion rather than a legacy accumulation. Its technology focus centers on H01L 29 (semiconductor devices, nine records), H10D 12, and H10D 30, pointing to a device-structure-first strategy covering SiC transistor architectures and their functional variants.
patent records: 11Nanjing NARI Group
NARI Group holds three patent records and is also classified as a new entrant in the recent window, with its portfolio concentrated in H02H 7 (protective circuit arrangements), H03K 17 (pulse technique and logic circuits), and H02H 3 — a protective-circuit-first approach differentiated from the device-structure focus of the Western leaders. NARI’s active co-filing with China EPRI and Nanjing NARI Relay entities amplifies the effective footprint of this cluster.
patent records: 3| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Infineon Technologies AG | 3 | ▲ new entrant |
| Micron Technology Inc | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
| onsemi (Semiconductor Components Industries LLC) | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
| Nanjing NARI Group Corporation | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
| Heilongjiang Huixin Semiconductor Co Ltd | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
Under-served branches at the intersection of SiC and system-level functional safety
Several IPC branches sit at the periphery of the dominant device-structure corpus, each holding eight or fewer patent records and representing areas where SiC-specific safety work has not yet concentrated.
H02M · Power conversion (AC/DC) with SiC-specific safety
H02M (power conversion) carries only seven patent records in this corpus despite being the primary application layer where SiC functional safety requirements manifest in inverters and converters for automotive and industrial drives. The branch is technically adjacent, has clear commercial pull from automotive traction and grid inverter markets, and could be entered by teams combining existing SiC device expertise with IEC 61508 or ISO 26262 compliance work at the converter level.
Search this in Eureka →H03K · Pulse technique and gate-driver logic
H03K (pulse technique and logic circuits) holds eight patent records, yet gate-driver design is a critical functional safety control point for SiC MOSFETs — encompassing short-circuit detection, desaturation protection, and safe-state switching. The sparse coverage relative to the device-structure corpus suggests an entry path for teams focused on integrated gate-driver IC design with embedded diagnostic and fault-handling logic tailored to SiC switching characteristics.
Search this in Eureka →How leaders diverge across technology routes
Route coverage across the main technology branches in the current evidence set.
| Player | H02H 7 · Protective circuit arrangements | H01L 23 · Semiconductor devices | H01L 29 · Semiconductor devices | H02H 3 · Protective circuit arrangements | H10D 62 · Semiconductor devices (general) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infineon Technologies AG | Absent | Moderate · 2 | Strong · 9 | Absent | Strong · 5 |
| Micron Technology Inc | Absent | Strong · 9 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Panasonic Holdings Corporation | Absent | Strong · 4 | Moderate · 1 | Absent | Strong · 4 |
| onsemi (Semiconductor Components Industries LLC) | Absent | Absent | Strong · 6 | Absent | Moderate · 3 |
| Applied Materials Inc | Absent | Strong · 8 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Nanjing NARI Group Corporation | Strong · 3 | Absent | Absent | Strong · 2 | Absent |
| Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation | Absent | Absent | Strong · 3 | Absent | Strong · 2 |
Frequently asked questions
The corpus in scope contains 56 patent families. This is a focused, specialist corpus rather than a broad semiconductor or power-electronics landscape, reflecting the specificity of the functional safety constraint applied to SiC technology.
Infineon Technologies AG leads with eleven patent records, ahead of onsemi (Semicon Components Industries) at ten and Micron Technology at nine. These three together account for a large share of the top-tier filer output.
The field is in a Maturity stage: annual filings peaked in 2022 at ten records and have eased since. The most recent years (2024–2026) show lower counts that are partly an artefact of publication lag and should not be read as a confirmed decline.
The United States leads with 38 patent records, followed by China at 32. European Patent Office coverage is thin at four records, with South Korea and Taiwan holding one record each, suggesting limited strategic filing in Europe relative to its automotive market importance.
Yes, but collaboration is concentrated in one cluster. Nanjing NARI Group co-filed with China EPRI Science & Technology, China EPRI Electric Power Engineering, and Nanjing NARI Relay. No cross-border or cross-sector co-filing pairs are identified in the evidence.
H02M (power conversion), H03K (pulse technique and gate-driver logic), C23C (coating and surface deposition), G11C (static and digital memories), and H10P each hold eight or fewer patent records in the corpus, making them the comparatively sparse branches adjacent to the dominant H01L device-structure core.
Built on Patsnap Open Platform
This report’s underlying patent dataset — filings, assignees, technology clusters — is open for developers via MCP and REST API. Free to start, 10,000 credits, no credit card required.
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.