Single Wafer Wet Cleaning Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Single Wafer Wet Cleaning Patents: Who Leads and Where the Claims Sit
54.3% concentration. The top five assignees hold 296 of the 545 records in scope — more than half the field sits with a handful of equipment and chemical suppliers. Filings ran from 32 in 2017 to a peak of 34 in 2022, then declined to 12 by 2024 — a 43% drop over the 2021-2024 span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in due to publication lag and should not be read as a continued fall.
- 1APPLIED MATERIALS INC123
- 2TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO LTD63
- 3TOKYO ELECTRON LTD54
- 4LAM RES CORP34
- 5KANTO CHEM CO INC22
See the full single wafer wet cleaning analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about single wafer wet cleaning patents
Who holds the most patents in single wafer wet cleaning?
The dataset’s ranking of 100 assignees shows one company holding 123 of the 545 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked holder at 22 records. The top five assignees combined hold 296 records, or 54.3% of the field. This level of concentration means a small group of equipment makers and foundries controls most of the core chemistry-delivery and apparatus claims, while the remaining 96 assignees on the ranking each hold comparatively few filings.
Is single wafer wet cleaning patent activity growing or shrinking?
Filing volume peaked at 34 records in 2022 and had fallen to 12 by 2024, the most recent year that can be treated as complete — a 43% decline from the 21 records filed in 2021. This does not necessarily mean R&D interest is disappearing; it may reflect consolidation around established process approaches rather than exit from the field. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because patent publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so recent-year counts should not be read as a continuing decline.
What does US10510527B2 actually cover?
US10510527B2, assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and granted in December 2019, covers a single wafer cleaning tool that applies a high-oxidative chemical pre-treatment to remove metal-contaminated photoresist residue, followed by a sulfuric-peroxide mixture (SPM) clean, with the sulfuric acid recovered and recycled within the tool. The claim ties a specific chemical sequence to an acid-recycling hardware limitation, so it blocks that particular process-and-apparatus combination rather than single wafer wet cleaning as a whole. Anyone designing a similar recycling-capable tool should review this filing’s exact chemistry sequence and recovery mechanism closely.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Single Wafer Wet Cleaning covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.