Silicon Photonics Wafer-Scale Manufacturing Patent Snapshot
A small group of fabless designers and foundries dominates a compact, maturing corpus of 35 patent families, with Marvell Asia, Samtec, and Advanced Micro Foundry holding the top three positions. The United States is the primary filing jurisdiction, and annual volume has plateaued near its 2020 peak, signalling a field consolidating around established optical-element and modulation approaches.
Marvell Asia leads a highly concentrated field
Marvell Asia leads the ranking with 7 patent families, followed by Samtec and Advanced Micro Foundry each at 5, and Intel and TSMC each at 3. The top five filers collectively account for 56% of the combined total of the ranked applicants visible in this query, confirming a highly concentrated visible assignee structure.
A clear tier gap separates the top three from the remainder of the ranking: every applicant outside the top five holds 2 or fewer patent families. This steep drop-off means the competitive moat is narrow but concentrated at the leader level.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marvell Asia Pte Ltd | 7 | |
| 2 | Samtec Inc | 5 | |
| 3 | Advanced Micro Foundry Pte Ltd | 5 | |
| 4 | Intel Corporation | 3 | |
| 5 | Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd | 3 | |
| 6 | Mixx Technologies Inc | 2 | |
| 7 | Ayar Labs Inc | 2 | |
| 8 | Scantinel Photonics GmbH | 2 | |
| 9 | Pandey Purnendu Shekhar | 2 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | RTX BBN Technologies Inc | 2 | |
| 11 | GL BAJAJ INST OF TECH & MANAGEMENT | 2 | |
| 12 | Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Ltd | 1 | |
| 13 | Raytheon BBN Technologies Corp | 1 | |
| 14 | Wells Fargo Bank NA | 1 | |
| 15 | AGENCY FOR SCI TECH & RES | 1 | |
| 16 | Ericsson | 1 | |
| 17 | Nokia of America Corp | 1 |
Marvell Asia’s 7-family position, combined with recent momentum flagged as a new entrant, suggests rapid accumulation in a short window. Advanced Micro Foundry and TSMC together signal that wafer-scale manufacturing IP is increasingly held at the foundry layer, not only among system integrators.
Patent publication lag means filings from the most recent 18–24 months are under-counted in this corpus; the apparent quietness of 2024 and 2026 should not be read as a slowdown. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Activity plateaued around 2020; optical elements dominate the technology mix
The annual filing trend reveals a field that peaked around 2020 and has since oscillated rather than sustained linear growth. The technology composition is heavily skewed toward optical elements and systems, with modulation and laser classes forming a secondary tier.
Annual filing trend
Filings rose sharply to a peak of 7 families in 2020, then settled into a band of 4–6 per year through 2022–2023. The 2024 and 2026 figures are depressed by publication lag and should not be treated as trend inflection points. On a multi-year basis the field remains active, though it has not exceeded its 2020 high.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
G02B (Optical elements and systems) is visible in the technology mix by a wide margin. G02F (Optical control and modulation) and H01S (Lasers and stimulated emission) form a secondary cluster, while H04B (Transmission), G01S (Radar and positioning), G01B (Measurement), and H01L (Semiconductor devices) each represent a small share—indicating that wafer-level semiconductor process claims remain sparse relative to photonic component claims.
↗ 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.
Optical module including silicon photonics chip an…
An optical module includes a waveguide interconnect that transports light signals; a Silicon Photonics chip that modulates the light signals, detects the light signals, or both modulates and detects the light signals; a coupler chip attached to the Silicon Photonics chip and the waveguide interconnect so that the light signals are transported along a light… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Optical module including silicon photonics chip an… | 64 |
| 2 | Method for fabricating silicon photonics package, … | 30 |
| 3 | Optical module including silicon photonics chip an… | 21 |
| 4 | Method and Apparatus for Coupling to an Optical Wa… | 20 |
| 5 | Optical module including silicon photonics chip an… | 14 |
| 6 | Silicon-photonic tunable laser | 9 |
| 7 | Optical module including silicon photonics chip an… | 9 |
| 8 | Optical module including silicon photonics chip an… | 7 |
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.
Assignee snapshot from the current evidence set
The applicants below are visible in this query result. Because the evidence set is relatively small, read this section as a directional snapshot rather than a full competitive ranking.
Marvell Asia
Marvell Asia holds 7 patent families, the largest position in the corpus, concentrated in G02B (Optical elements and systems) and G02F (Optical control and modulation). Momentum is classified as a new entrant, indicating these families were accumulated rapidly rather than over a long baseline. This trajectory points to a deliberate IP-build strategy aligned with co-packaged optics and high-speed interconnect products.
families: 7Advanced Micro Foundry
Advanced Micro Foundry holds 5 patent families and is equally strong across G02B (Optical elements and systems) and G02F (Optical control and modulation) — the broadest dual-class coverage among all ranked applicants. Momentum is also classified as a new entrant, suggesting recent and rapid filing activity. As a dedicated silicon photonics foundry, its IP emphasises process-compatible modulation structures alongside waveguide elements.
families: 5Frequently asked questions
The corpus analysed contains 35 patent families. This is a focused, specialist corpus rather than a broad photonics dataset, reflecting the specificity of the wafer-scale manufacturing query.
Marvell Asia leads with 7 patent families. Samtec and Advanced Micro Foundry each hold 5 families, placing them joint second. Intel and TSMC each hold 3 families.
G02B (Optical elements and systems) is by far the visible class. G02F (Optical control and modulation), H01S (Lasers and stimulated emission), and H04B (Transmission) form a secondary tier. H01L (Semiconductor devices) is notably sparse with only 1 patent record.
The United States is the primary filing jurisdiction. PCT (WIPO) and EPO filings indicate selective international coverage. India, Canada, and Singapore appear as smaller filing destinations.
The field is assessed as maturing, with annual filings having plateaued near their 2020 peak. On a multi-year basis the field remains active, but sustained year-on-year growth has not resumed since that peak. Publication lag means the most recent 18–24 months are under-represented.
No co-applicant filings are detected in the 35-family corpus. All identified applicants appear to be filing independently, suggesting proprietary development strategies prevail in this specific sub-field at this corpus scale.
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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.
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