Silicon Nitride Passivation Films Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Filing has plateaued, not grown. Annual filings peaked at 23 in 2021 and have since drifted down to 1 in the most recent (partial) year, with 2022 sitting at 19 — a flat-to-declining trend rather than an expanding one.
- H01L dominates the IPC mix by a wide margin. 618 of 763 families touch H01L (semiconductor devices), more than double the C23C deposition-process count of 327, showing that most claims are anchored in device integration rather than the coating process itself.
- The United States receives nearly twice the filings of any other office. 297 families route through the USPTO versus 174 in Japan and 84 at the EPO, meaning freedom-to-operate risk concentrates first in the US before Asia or Europe.
Filing growth compares 2021 (23 records) with 2024 (9) — 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 763 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Silicon nitride passivation films sit at the interface between the deposition process and the device it protects. Claims in this dataset span PECVD deposition conditions, hydrogen content control, refractive index tuning, and interface-defect and stress management — the parameters that determine whether a nitride film reliably seals a semiconductor surface without inducing mechanical or electrical failure. The search spans 763 patent families filed between 2017 and 2026 across C23C16, H01L21 and C04B35.
The IPC composition shows the field is device-led: H01L and the related H10P/H10D/H10B subclasses collectively outweigh the pure coating classification C23C, indicating that most filers are protecting how the film integrates into a semiconductor stack rather than the deposition chemistry in isolation. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year's low count understates real filing activity rather than signalling an actual collapse.
Filing trend and technology composition
763 families published between 2015 and mid-2026, concentrated in a handful of IPC subclasses and routed predominantly through the US and Japanese patent offices.
A peak in 2021, then a decline
Filings rose from 21 in 2017 to a peak of 23 in 2021, held at 19 by 2022, and have tapered since — consistent with a maturing claim space where the core deposition and stress-control parameters are already well covered, rather than one still attracting first-time filers.
Device integration outweighs the coating process
H01L (618) and its sibling subclasses H10P (373), H10D (68) and H10B (53) together dwarf C23C (327), the subclass for the deposition process itself. Smaller counts in G02F (28), H01J (25) and G03F (20) mark optical and lithographic adjacencies that see far less claim activity.
Shares are the percentage of the 763 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Silicon Nitride Passivation Films with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about silicon nitride passivation films and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this space
Low hydrogen and uniform silicon nitride film for waveguides
This Applied Materials filing describes depositing a silicon nitride film by flowing a silane, nitrogen and hydrogen precursor mixture into a processing chamber and applying RF power at a defined frequency and power to deposit a film with a controlled hydrogen content. The claims target waveguide applications where film uniformity and low hydrogen content directly affect optical performance.Filed as WO2026164944A1, assigned to Applied Materials, Inc., dated 2026-08-06.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20060199357A1 | High stress nitride film and method for formation thereof | 672 |
| 2 | US20080020591A1 | Method to increase silicon nitride tensile stress using nitrogen plasma in-situ treatment and ex-situ UV cure | 648 |
| 3 | US20080124946A1 | Organosilane compounds for modifying dielectrical properties of silicon oxide and silicon nitride films | 569 |
| 4 | US20060019502A1 | Method of controlling the film properties of a CVD-deposited silicon nitride film | 532 |
| 5 | US20120196450A1 | Method to increase silicon nitride tensile stress using nitrogen plasma in-situ treatment and ex-situ UV cure | 519 |
| 6 | US7678715B2 | Low wet etch rate silicon nitride film | 515 |
| 7 | US20170250068A1 | Method for forming silicon nitride film selectively on sidewalls or flat surfaces of trenches | 496 |
| 8 | US20160148806A1 | Method of depositing ammonia free and chlorine free conformal silicon nitride film | 495 |
| 9 | US8138104B2 | Method to increase silicon nitride tensile stress using nitrogen plasma in-situ treatment and ex-situ UV cure | 479 |
| 10 | US20110065289A1 | Method of manufacturing semiconductor device and substrate processing apparatus | 438 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside the corpus; read them as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a ranking of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns worth weighing before deciding where to file or who to watch.
Growth has stalled since 2021
The 2021 peak of 23 filings gave way to 19 in 2022 and a steep taper afterward. Even allowing for an 18-month publication lag understating the final year, the multi-year decline from peak points to a claim space that filers are treating as largely settled.
US filings lead by a wide margin
The United States receives nearly 1.7 times the filings of Japan and more than 3.5 times those of China. Any freedom-to-operate check for this technology needs to start with US prosecution history before extending to Asia or Europe.
Device claims outnumber process claims nearly 2:1
Filers protect how the nitride film performs once integrated into a semiconductor device far more often than they protect the deposition process that creates it. That imbalance suggests process-only claims may face less crowded prior art than device-integration claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to silicon nitride passivation films, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Versum Materials US, LLC | Board of Regents, The University of Texas System | 12 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | XIA LI QUN | 7 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | SHEK MEI YEE | 5 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | ROFLOX ISABELITA | 5 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | MSAAD HICHEM | 5 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | BALSEANU MIHAELA | 5 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | YAMASE RYAN | 4 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | RAJAGOPALAN NAGARAJAN | 4 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across 763 families, and the strongest pair — Versum Materials US and the University of Texas System — co-files just 12 times. Most work in this field is filed by a single assignee acting alone.
Assignee landscape and where the gaps sit
Filing activity in the latest year is thin across the board, and no assignee shows meaningful year-over-year growth — a sign of a field where incumbents are defending existing positions rather than expanding them.
Applied Materials is still active while peers have gone quiet
Applied Materials shows one filing in the latest year, the only assignee in the tracked group with any recent activity. Versum Materials US, by contrast, dropped from prior activity to zero, a -100% year-over-year change.
Early filers still anchor the citation graph
The most-cited records in this dataset date to the mid-2000s and concern stress control and nitrogen plasma treatment. Their high citation counts reflect years of accumulation inside the corpus rather than continued filing activity by their original assignees.
Co-filing is the exception, not the norm
With only 10 co-assignee pairs identified and the strongest at just 12 shared filings, this field is overwhelmingly filed by single assignees. Joint development agreements, where they exist, are not showing up as joint patent ownership.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 1 | — |
| Versum Materials US, LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Mitsubishi Electric Corporation | 0 | — |
| Fujitsu Limited | 0 | — |
| Sumitomo Electric Device Innovations, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Tokyo Electron Limited | 0 | — |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific follow-up questions rather than a single conclusion.
Check freedom-to-operate against the US filing base first
With 297 of 763 families routed through the USPTO, any commercial deployment plan should clear US prior art before assuming the same claims apply cleanly elsewhere.
Explore assignee filings in EurekaTrack whether the 2021–2022 peak was a one-off cycle
A single additional filing year of data would clarify whether the post-2021 decline is a genuine plateau or an artefact of publication lag understating recent activity.
Model filing trends in EurekaTest claim scope in the under-claimed sub-areas
Low-hydrogen waveguide-grade films and optical-modulation applications (G02F) show materially lower filing density than the device-integration core, and may offer more room for a defensible first claim.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The most-cited records in this dataset date primarily to the mid-2000s and concern stress control methods, including nitrogen plasma in-situ treatment combined with ex-situ UV cure. High citation counts reflect years of accumulation inside a searched corpus and should be read as a marker of influence on later filers, not as evidence that the original assignee is still the most active player today. Current filing activity, tracked separately by recent-year momentum, tells a different and more current story.
No. Filings peaked at 23 in 2021, held at 19 through 2022, and have declined since, with the most recent tracked year showing just 1 filing. Some of that final-year drop is expected because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, but the multi-year decline from the 2021 peak indicates the field has plateaued rather than expanded. This pattern is more consistent with a maturing claim space than an emerging one.
Start with the United States. It receives 297 of the 763 families in this dataset, nearly 1.7 times the next-largest office (Japan, 174) and more than three and a half times China's count of 71. A US-first clearance search, followed by Japan and the EPO, covers the large majority of filing activity in this technology.
Device-integration claims are considerably more crowded. H01L and its sibling semiconductor-device subclasses (H10P, H10D, H10B) collectively account for hundreds more records than C23C, the subclass covering the deposition process itself. That gap suggests claims narrowly focused on the deposition process, rather than how the film integrates into a finished device, may face somewhat less prior art density, though it does not mean that space is unclaimed.
Rarely. Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across all 763 families in this dataset, and the strongest pairing — Versum Materials US and the University of Texas System — co-files just 12 times. The near-total absence of joint ownership suggests that where R&D collaboration exists in this field, it is not typically formalised through shared patent ownership.
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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.