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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/solder-paste-and-void-control-in-reflow-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Electronic Packaging MaterialsSolder Paste and Void Control in Reflow: Patents, Filers and Filing Trends
- Filing has cooled sharply from its peak. Filings ran 22 in 2021 down to 2 in 2024, a 91% drop over that three-year span, after which 2025-2026 remain too recent to read as trend.
- The top of the field is only moderately concentrated. The top 5 assignees hold 32.9% of all 213 records and the top 10 hold 58.2%, leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants below them.
- Printed-circuit and semiconductor classes dominate, but printing-process claims are thinner. H05K and H01L each cover roughly a third or more of records, while B41F printing-machine and B41M printing-process classes sit under 14%.
213
Published Records
33%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-91%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (22 records) with 2024 (2) — 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 213 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 213 published patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that address solder paste printing, reflow void formation and related defects such as head-in-pillow, flux residue and stencil aperture design. The search string pairs process terms — solder paste printing, reflow void, lead-free solder paste — with defect and process-control terms including vacuum reflow, print transfer efficiency and wetting behavior, so the set is weighted toward process and materials claims rather than pure alloy chemistry.
Filing activity in this set peaked in 2021 and has fallen sharply since; publication lag of roughly 18 months means the 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as a continued decline until later data confirms it.
Filing activity by year, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solder Paste and Void Control in Reflow covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 213-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which technology classes carry the claims.
A sharp pullback from the 2021 peak
Filings rose to a peak of 22 in 2021, then fell to 2 by 2024 — a 91% decline over that three-year span. Earlier years, including 2017 at 5, show the ramp that preceded the peak. The final years in the window are undercounted because of publication lag, not necessarily reduced activity.
Printed circuits and semiconductor packaging lead the classification mix
H05K (printed circuits & assemblies) appears on 53.1% of the 213 records and H01L (semiconductor devices) on 31.9%, with B23K (welding, soldering & brazing) close behind at 31.5%. Printing-specific classes — B41F at 13.1% and B41M at 6.1% — are comparatively thin, and C22C alloy claims sit at 8.5%, suggesting most of the claim density sits in assembly and process integration rather than in paste chemistry or printing-equipment mechanics.
Shares are the percentage of the 213 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solder Paste and Void Control in Reflow covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Most-cited prior art and a recent filing
Representative recent filing
Multichannel optical fiber fluorescence temperature measurement device and method for electrostatic chuck in etcher
HERCH OPTO ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.
Filed by Herch Opto Electronic Technology and published January 2026, this record describes a fluorescence-based temperature sensing device for electrostatic chucks in etching equipment, using a gold-plated fluorescent probe and a copper-diamond thermal conductive layer routed through fiber-optic channels.Included here as the most recent record in the set rather than as a leading assignee filing; it illustrates how adjacent thermal-measurement technology intersects with reflow and packaging processes.
Highest-cited records in this set
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20030019917A1 | Bump forming method, presoldering treatment method, soldering method, bump forming apparatus, presoldering tr… | 51 |
| 2 | US20070029365A1 | High volume microlamination production of devices | 46 |
| 3 | US20100143656A1 | Method and Structure for Adapting Solder Column to Warped Substrate | 40 |
| 4 | US6662812B1 | Method for acoustic and vibrational energy for assisted drying of solder stencils and electronic modules | 38 |
| 5 | US20040124230A1 | Application of acoustic and vibrational energy for fabricating bumped IC die and assembly of PCA's | 36 |
| 6 | US20140210993A1 | Automatic programming of solder paste inspection system | 33 |
| 7 | US5746127A | Electroformed squeegee blade for surface mount screen printing | 32 |
| 8 | US5593504A | Method of cleaning solder pastes from a substrate with an aqueous cleaner | 32 |
| 9 | US20100102446A1 | Semiconductor electronic component and semiconductor device using the same | 31 |
| 10 | US20100078830A1 | Adhesive tape and semiconductor device using the same | 30 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate references; treat them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not of present-day importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solder Paste and Void Control in Reflow covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers imply for filing strategy
Three read-throughs from the concentration, trend and classification data above.
Concentration
32.9% / 58.2%
top 5 / top 10 share of 213 records
Moderate concentration, not a monopoly
With the top 5 assignees holding 32.9% of records and the top 10 holding 58.2%, no single filer dominates outright. The leader sits at 17 records against a field where tenth place holds 10 — a gradual taper rather than a cliff, meaning freedom-to-operate analysis has to cover a wider set of active filers than in more concentrated fields.
Based on the 76-company ranked list
Momentum
22 → 2
peak-year to 2024 filings
A pullback that predates the most recent data
The -91% move from the 2021 peak of 22 filings to 2 in 2024 is a real signal, not an artifact of lag, since 2024 is far enough back to be substantially complete. Whether this reflects claim-space saturation, consolidation among filers, or a shift toward trade-secret practice for paste formulations is not answerable from filing counts alone.
2021-2024 comparison, per the filing-trend data
Classification mix
53.1% H05K
share of 213 records
Assembly integration outweighs printing mechanics
Printed-circuit assembly (H05K) and semiconductor device (H01L) classes carry the bulk of claim density, while printing-machine (B41F) and printing-process (B41M) classes trail well behind. That gap points to where claim space is thinner: stencil and print-transfer mechanics look less crowded than the assembly-level integration claims built around them.
IPC subclass shares, all sum to over 100% since records carry multiple classes
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to solder paste and void control in reflow, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solder Paste and Void Control in Reflow covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked assignee list spans 76 companies across materials suppliers, equipment makers and end-use electronics manufacturers, with filing activity thinning quickly outside the top 10.
Leader
17 records
top-ranked assignee
A single leader, not a runaway one
The top-ranked assignee holds 17 of 213 records, ahead of a fifth-place holder at 11 and a tenth-place holder at 10 — a gradual taper that suggests contested claim space rather than a locked-up field.
Assignee ranking, 76 companies
Co-filing
10 pairs
co-assignee pairs identified
A tight cluster of Japanese materials suppliers co-files repeatedly
Three assignee pairs each appear together on 11 records, all drawn from the same small cluster of flux and solder-materials suppliers — evidence of a stable, longstanding collaboration network rather than one-off joint filings.
Strongest co-assignee pairs by shared record count
Recent activity
0 in latest year
across several top-ranked assignees
Momentum has stalled even among the leaders
Several of the most-ranked assignees, including the field leader and multiple materials and semiconductor manufacturers, show zero filings in the latest tracked year — consistent with the broader 2021-to-2024 pullback rather than an isolated slowdown at one company.
Recent-year momentum by assignee
Filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| IO Tech Group Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Senju Metal Industry Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Arakawa Chemical Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Koki Company Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Harima Chemicals, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Intel Corporation | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solder Paste and Void Control in Reflow covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Using this landscape
The dataset points to where to look next, not to a finished conclusion.
Check freedom to operate against the ranked leaders
With concentration moderate rather than extreme, a clearance search needs to cover the ranked field beyond just the top few names, particularly the tight co-filing cluster among materials suppliers.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaWatch whether the 2021-2024 pullback holds
Because 2025-2026 filings are still being published, the apparent decline needs revisiting once lag clears; a premature read could miss a rebound already underway.
Track filing trends in EurekaProbe the thinner printing-process classes
B41F and B41M claim density is well below the assembly-level classes, which may indicate room for narrowly drafted process claims around stencil and transfer mechanics.
Run a white-space search in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solder Paste and Void Control in Reflow covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on this landscape
The ranked list covers 76 companies, with the leading assignee holding 17 of the 213 records in scope, a fifth-place holder at 11, and tenth place at 10. That taper means no single company controls the field outright, though the top 10 combined account for 58.2% of all records. A freedom-to-operate review should look beyond the top few names given how gradually the ranking declines.
Filings peaked at 22 in 2021 and fell to 2 by 2024, a 91% drop over that span, which is a genuine signal since 2024 is old enough to be largely complete in the data. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still filling in because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so it is premature to call the trend still falling. The honest read is that the field cooled sharply after 2021 and the more recent trajectory is not yet visible.
The dominant classes are H05K (printed circuits and assemblies) at 53.1% of the 213 records and H01L (semiconductor devices) at 31.9%, with B23K (welding, soldering and brazing) close behind at 31.5%. Printing-specific classes such as B41F (printing machines, 13.1%) and B41M (printing processes, 6.1%) are thinner, and alloy-focused C22C claims sit at 8.5%. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be read as mutually exclusive categories.
The classification data shows printing-process and printing-machine classes carrying far less claim density than the assembly-integration classes that dominate the set. Sub-areas like stencil aperture geometry, print transfer efficiency measurement and vacuum reflow process control look comparatively under-claimed relative to core H05K and H01L filings. That does not guarantee an easy filing, but it does suggest the mechanics of paste transfer and reflow atmosphere control are less crowded than assembly-level defect claims.
US12523547B1, filed by Herch Opto Electronic Technology and published in January 2026, describes a fluorescence-based fiber-optic temperature sensor for electrostatic chucks in etching equipment, not a solder paste or reflow process itself. It is included in this landscape as the most recent record captured by the search terms, illustrating how adjacent thermal-sensing technology can intersect with packaging and reflow equipment. Anyone assessing solder paste or void-control claims specifically should treat this record as context rather than as a blocking reference for paste chemistry or printing process claims.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solder Paste and Void Control in Reflow covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.