Wide-Bandgap Power Electronics Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- Filing is concentrated but not locked up. the top 5 assignees hold 24.0% of all 391 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 39.4% — leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- Growth is real, not a spike. filings rose from 27 in 2021 to 36 in 2024, a 33% increase over that three-year span, with a peak of 42 in 2022.
- Power conversion and control circuits dominate the claim space. H02M (power conversion) appears in 40.2% of records and H01L (semiconductor devices) in 35.3%, while measurement and motor-control classes stay under 10%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (27 records) with 2024 (36) — 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 391 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families combining wide-bandgap device claims — SiC and GaN power devices — with control-side elements such as switching frequency, power stage, current sensor and voltage regulation circuitry. That pairing matters: a wide-bandgap die alone is a materials-science claim, but a die plus the control circuit around it is what actually ships in an inverter, charger or power module.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-08-31 cut-off, with 391 published records and 391 families in the assignee ranking. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 counts in any trend chart are still filling in and should not be read as a slowdown.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 391 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings climbed from 30 in 2017 to a peak of 42 in 2022, then eased before the confirmed 2021→2024 rise of 27 to 36 (+33%). The 2025 and 2026 figures are undercounts pending publication and should not be read as a decline.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
H02M (power conversion) and H01L (semiconductor devices) anchor the field at 40.2% and 35.3% of the 391 records respectively. H03K (pulse technique and logic circuits) sits at 24.0%, while measurement (G01R, 5.1%) and motor control (H02P, 7.7%) are comparatively thin — a record can carry multiple classes, so these shares add to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 391 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Wide-Bandgap Power Electronics Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about wide-bandgap power electronics patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a recent representative filing
US12633815B2 — Paralleling power semiconductors with different switching frequencies
Filed by North Carolina State University and published 2026-05-19, this filing addresses a hybrid switch architecture where a silicon power device and a wide bandgap device are controlled at different gate switching frequencies within the same parallel circuit — the wide-bandgap device switched faster, the silicon device slower — to cut conduction and switching losses in high-current circuits.University-originated filing rather than a device maker, illustrating that control-scheme claims around wide-bandgap devices are not the exclusive domain of the large component vendors.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US9653642B1 | Manufacturable RGB display based on thin film gallium and nitrogen containing light emitting diodes | 168 |
| 2 | US9666677B1 | Manufacturable thin film gallium and nitrogen containing devices | 137 |
| 3 | US10002928B1 | Manufacturable RGB display based on thin film gallium and nitrogen containing light emitting diodes | 119 |
| 4 | US20130313635A1 | Semiconductor device | 83 |
| 5 | US20130248883A1 | High performance power module | 73 |
| 6 | US20120261676A1 | SiC FIELD EFFECT TRANSISTOR | 67 |
| 7 | US20070057284A1 | Double-sided package for power module | 57 |
| 8 | CN109510453A | 一种基于SiC功率器件的EV车载充电器 | 52 |
| 9 | US20090181441A1 | Porous silicon-polymer composites for biosensor applications | 52 |
| 10 | US20150318851A1 | Devices and systems comprising drivers for power conversion circuits | 44 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate them — read this as a signal of influence within the searched corpus, not of current commercial weight.
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.
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Three read-outs from the corpus that matter for filing strategy, not just for describing the market.
Leadership is real but not exclusive
The leader holds 23 records and fifth place holds 17, but the top 10 combined still account for only 39.4% of all 391 records in scope. That leaves most of the field to single- and few-filing entrants, including universities and regional manufacturers.
Growth sits in the control layer, not just the die
The three-year rise from 27 to 36 filings tracks alongside strong H02M and H03K shares, suggesting the growth is concentrated in power-stage and control-circuit claims rather than purely in new semiconductor device structures.
The US is the dominant receiving office, China and EPO trail
United States filings (199) outnumber the next largest receiving offices — EPO (53) and China (45) — by a wide margin, with WIPO PCT filings (37) suggesting a meaningful share of applicants are still keeping multi-jurisdiction options open.
Co-filing is rare and mostly university-industry
Only five co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus, and the strongest pairing links a university with a regional electric-technology company at 4 shared records — collaboration exists but is not the norm in this field.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to wide-bandgap power electronics patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span large semiconductor and power-module vendors, aviation systems suppliers, and a scatter of universities and regional manufacturers — no single group has closed off the field.
A single leader, then a shallow drop-off
The top-ranked assignee holds 23 records against 17 for fifth place — a real gap, but not the kind of runaway lead that would justify avoiding the space outright.
Recent-year activity has thinned across the board
Among the assignees tracked for recent-year momentum, only one shows a filing in the latest year; the rest show none, consistent with the 18-month publication lag rather than an actual pullback.
University-industry pairs anchor what collaboration exists
The strongest co-assignee pair links an academic institution with a regional electric-technology manufacturer, pointing to applied-research partnerships rather than joint ventures between large incumbents.
Receiving-office spread favours the US but is not exclusive to it
With EPO, China, WIPO PCT, India and Germany all represented, filers are pursuing protection across multiple jurisdictions rather than concentrating on any single market.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Huawei Digital Power Technologies Co., Ltd. | 1 | — |
| ROHM Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| GE Aviation Systems LLC | 0 | — |
| South China University of Technology | 0 | — |
| Infineon Technologies Austria AG | 0 | — |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Wolfspeed, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Cambridge GaN Devices Limited | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, competitive tracking, or identifying a defensible filing position.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top 10
With 39.4% of records held by ten assignees, a freedom-to-operate review should start with their claim scope in H02M and H01L before broadening to the long tail.
Run a freedom-to-operate searchTrack momentum, not just headcount
Recent-year filing counts are still filling in under the publication lag; revisit assignee momentum in 12–18 months rather than drawing conclusions from 2025–2026 counts today.
Set up assignee monitoringExplore the under-claimed control-layer branches
Current-sensor integration and adaptive gate-drive control show thinner filing density than the core device classes — a reasonable place to scope a first claim.
Explore white space with EurekaFrequently asked questions
The dataset's leading assignee holds 23 of the 391 records in scope, with a shallow drop-off to 17 records at fifth place and 9 at tenth. The top 5 assignees combined account for 24.0% of all records and the top 10 for 39.4%, meaning no single company has cornered the field. The ranked list covers 100 companies, so most of the activity sits in a long tail beyond the leaders.
Filings rose from 27 in 2021 to 36 in 2024, a confirmed 33% increase over that three-year span, with a peak of 42 filings in 2022. Counts for 2025 and 2026 appear lower, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual decline. Treat any year within the last 18 months as an undercount, not a trend signal.
US12633815B2, filed by North Carolina State University and published 2026-05-19, covers a method for operating paired silicon and wide-bandgap power devices at different gate switching frequencies within the same hybrid switch, aimed at reducing conduction and switching losses in high-current circuits. It is a control-scheme claim rather than a device-structure claim, so it sits alongside rather than blocks most semiconductor fabrication patents. Anyone designing multi-frequency paralleling schemes for SiC or GaN devices should review its claim scope directly.
H02M (power conversion, 40.2% of the 391 records) and H01L (semiconductor devices, 35.3%) are the two dominant classes, followed by H03K (pulse technique and logic circuits) at 24.0%. Measurement-related class G01R and motor-control class H02P each sit under 10%, suggesting thinner claim density in sensing and motor-drive integration relative to the core device and conversion classes. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages add to more than 100% and should not be treated as a breakdown of the whole.
The thinnest filing density relative to the core power-conversion and semiconductor classes shows up in current-sensor integration for GaN power stages, adaptive gate-drive frequency control, and hybrid silicon/wide-bandgap paralleling schemes. These are not empty of prior art, but they carry noticeably fewer records than the H02M and H01L core, making them worth scoping for a first claim rather than assuming they are closed off. A freedom-to-operate check against the ranked leaders' claims is still the sensible first step before filing there.
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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.