Silicon Photomultiplier Arrays Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- 83 of 212 records sit with the top five assignees (39.2%), but 47 more companies still hold ranked positions — this is a concentrated field with a real long tail.
- Filings peaked in 2017 at 27 and fell to 6 by 2024 (down 68% from 2021's 19) — publication lag means the last two years are still filling in, not necessarily declining.
- G01T dominates at 39.6% of records, tied to PET/radiation detection, while dynamic-range and recovery-time claims sit thinner across G01J and G06F.
Filing growth compares 2021 (19 records) with 2024 (6) — 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 212 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the SiPM array patent record actually shows
Silicon photomultiplier arrays sit at the intersection of semiconductor device physics and detection system engineering, which is why the 212 records in scope span classes as different as G01T (nuclear and X-radiation measurement) and G06F (digital data processing). The search string was built around the operational pain points that actually separate one SiPM design from another — crosstalk between microcells, gain uniformity, dynamic range, temperature coefficient, recovery time and packing density — rather than the device name alone, so the corpus should be read as claims about performance tuning, not just device structure.
Filing rose to a 2017 peak and has since receded, a pattern consistent with an early land-grab around core microcell architecture followed by consolidation into fewer, more defensible filings. Reading the trend past 2024 as a real slowdown would be premature: publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 212-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend: a 2017 peak followed by a real contraction
Filings ran from 27 in 2017 down to 2 in the still-partial 2026 count. The clearest complete-year comparison is 2021 (19) to 2024 (6), a 68% drop — a genuine contraction in new filing, not an artefact of lag, since both years are fully published.
IPC composition: detection applications outweigh raw device claims
G01T (39.6% of records) and G01J (15.6%) point to radiation and light measurement as the dominant application context, ahead of H01L (23.6%), the semiconductor device class itself. G01S (13.7%), G01N (12.7%), A61B (11.3%), G06F (8.5%) and H04N (8.0%) show the device reused across positioning, material analysis, medical and imaging systems — because a record can carry several classes, these shares add to more than 100% of the 212 records.
Shares are the percentage of the 212 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Silicon Photomultiplier Arrays with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about silicon photomultiplier arrays and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records anchor TOF-PET applications
US9810795B2 — Method and apparatus to minimise the onset and recovery time of a silicon photomultiplier
Silicon photomultiplier circuitry is provided that comprises at least one silicon photomultiplier pixel, each pixel comprising a plurality of silicon photomultiplier microcells. The silicon photomultiplier circuitry comprises control circuitry adapted to maintain a substantially constant voltage on a connection node between microcells of the pixel. The control circuitry is adapted to minimize the onset and recovery time of an output signal by maintaining a substantially constant voltage on the connection node.Filed by Sensl Technologies; issued 2017-11-07.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2006111883A2 | Digital silicon photomultiplier for TOF-pet | 148 |
| 2 | US20080203309A1 | Digital silicon photomultiplier for TOF-PET | 119 |
| 3 | US20100010343A1 | Detection of radiation labeled sites using a radiation detection probe or camera incorporating a solid state … | 98 |
| 4 | US8395127B1 | Digital silicon photomultiplier for TOF PET | 97 |
| 5 | US20160266260A1 | SiPM-BASED RADIATION DETECTION SYSTEMS AND METHODS | 82 |
| 6 | US20180039053A1 | Device and method for detecting light | 72 |
| 7 | US20100316184A1 | Silicon photomultiplier detector for computed tomography | 66 |
| 8 | US8068896B2 | Detection of radiation labeled sites using a radiation detection probe or camera incorporating a solid state … | 54 |
| 9 | US7723694B2 | Digital silicon photomultiplier for TOF-PET | 53 |
| 10 | JP2010536186A | シリコンフォトマルチプライヤ回路に関連する方法及び装置 | 49 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply by virtue of longer exposure — read them as a signal of influence on downstream work, not as a ranking of current technical 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.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the concentration and citation data mean for filing strategy
Three figures worth sitting with before deciding where to file next: how tight the top of the ranking is, how far filing volume has actually receded, and which application context is absorbing most of the claim activity.
Leadership is real but not total
The leader holds 29 records with fifth place at 12 and tenth at 7 — a steep drop from first to fifth, then a much flatter tail across 57 ranked companies. New entrants are not blocked outright; they are competing for space below the top tier.
A genuine pullback, not a lag artefact
Because both 2021 and 2024 are fully published, this drop reflects real filing behaviour rather than the reporting delay that affects 2025 and 2026. It suggests core microcell architecture claims are maturing and fewer entities see fresh whitespace there.
Radiation detection is the dominant use case
G01T's share, well ahead of G01J at 15.6%, shows that TOF-PET and related radiation-measurement systems have driven a disproportionate share of SiPM array claims, consistent with the most-cited records in the corpus all being PET-related.
Filing is US-anchored with a real European and PCT presence
Europe (EPO) accounts for 34 and WIPO (PCT) filings for 26, with China at 18 and the UK at 8 — a filing footprint that still runs through US and European offices first rather than China-first.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to silicon photomultiplier arrays, with the prior art for and against each one.
A concentrated top tier over a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants
57 companies appear in the ranked list. The leader sits well ahead of the field at 29 records, but the drop to a flatter tail below tenth place (7 records) means the ranking rewards sustained filing more than any single breakthrough claim.
The top assignee holds a clear lead
With 29 records against a fifth-place figure of 12, the leading assignee's position rests on volume built over years rather than a single pivotal filing — consistent with its presence among the most-cited TOF-PET records.
The tier below the leader is tightly packed
The gap from fifth (12) to tenth (7) is far narrower than first to fifth, meaning several companies are realistically contesting the same claim space rather than one runner-up chasing the leader.
Most assignees hold only a handful of records
Beyond the top ten (which together hold 59.9% of all 212 records), the remaining 47 ranked companies split the rest thinly — a sign that entry is still possible outside the core detection-application claims.
Co-filing is limited and concentrated around one player
Only 9 co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus, and the strongest repeated pairings all involve the same leading assignee working with named inventors or a related corporate entity, rather than cross-company joint ventures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | — |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC | 0 | — |
| Motional AD LLC | 0 | — |
| Sensl Technologies, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC | 0 | — |
| Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| FNV IP B.V. | 0 | — |
| NXP B.V. | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to two practical next steps: checking freedom-to-operate against the densest claim clusters, and scanning the thinner branches for a defensible first filing.
Map claim boundaries around the cited TOF-PET filings
The most-cited records concentrate around digital SiPM architecture for time-of-flight PET. Before filing in that space, a clause-by-clause read of those claims against your own circuit topology is the fastest way to find out whether you have room.
Explore the citation network in EurekaTest a first claim in an under-claimed branch
Dynamic-range extension, temperature-coefficient compensation and non-PET recovery-time control show thinner representation relative to the core detection classes. Drafting a claim there and checking it against prior art directly is a faster test than reading the landscape alone.
Draft and check a claim in EurekaCommon questions about SiPM array patents
The corpus behind this landscape ranks 57 assignees, with the leader holding 29 of the 212 records in scope. The top five assignees combined hold 83 records, or 39.2% of the total, so leadership is real but not exclusive — a long tail of 47 further companies still hold ranked positions. Sensl Technologies, whose recovery-time patent US9810795B2 is a representative filing in this dataset, is one of the named assignees active in the space alongside Philips and several semiconductor and medical-imaging firms.
Filings peaked at 27 in 2017 and had fallen to 6 by 2024, a 68% decline from 2021's 19 filings measured over complete, fully-published years. This pattern is typical of a technology that saw an early rush to claim core microcell and readout architecture, followed by consolidation once the foundational designs were staked out. It does not necessarily mean the technology has stalled — it means the basic device claims are largely occupied, pushing new work toward system-level and application-specific claims instead.
US9810795B2, assigned to Sensl Technologies and issued in November 2017, covers silicon photomultiplier circuitry that uses control circuitry to hold a substantially constant voltage on the connection node between microcells within a pixel. The stated purpose is to minimise the onset and recovery time of the output signal, which directly targets the recovery-time performance parameter this whole landscape search was built around. Anyone designing microcell-level voltage control for faster recovery should read its claims closely rather than assuming a workaround exists by default.
G01T (nuclear and X-radiation measurement) leads at 39.6% of the 212 records, reflecting the outsized role of PET and radiation detection applications, ahead of H01L (semiconductor devices) at 23.6% and G01J (radiation and light measurement) at 15.6%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages add up to well over 100% of the record total — they describe overlapping application contexts, not a strict partition of the field.
Relative to the dense G01T and H01L activity, branches tied to dynamic-range extension, temperature-coefficient compensation, packing-density layout and recovery-time control outside PET-specific contexts appear thinner in this corpus. That does not guarantee an easy grant, but it does mean a first claim drafted around one of those specific performance parameters is less likely to run into the citation-heavy TOF-PET prior art that dominates the most-cited records. Any filing decision should still be checked against the full claim set of the leading assignees before relying on apparent white space.
Research Silicon Photomultiplier Arrays in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole silicon photomultiplier arrays corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.