It is worth noting that the top 20 foreign integrated circuit patentees in China are also among the top in the United States. Among the top 12 foreign investors in China, 8 overlap, including Qualcomm, TSMC, Samsung, and Panasonic. , Fujitsu, Intel, IBM and Sony.

source: This article comes from "North American Intellectual Rights News", thank you.

Nowadays, technology is developed, and technologies such as AI, Internet of Things, and 5G have added a lot of convenience to our lives; however, to realize high-tech technologies such as AI, Internet of Things, or 5G, semiconductor technology cannot be underestimated. If there is a lack of core chips, many The design of smart terminals is impossible to achieve. However, in semiconductor technology, chip design technology is important, but without advanced front-end manufacturing processes and sophisticated back-end packaging and testing technology, no matter how excellent the chip design is, it will not be possible. It can be seen that the semiconductor industry is interconnected and indispensable, so the patent layout must also be viewed from the overall perspective to get a full picture.

The Intellectual Property Work Department of the China Semiconductor Industry Association and the Shanghai Silicon Intellectual Property Exchange (SSIPEX) published the 2018 version of the "China Integrated Circuit Industry Intellectual Property Annual Report" in June 2019. The content is detailed, from the world to the United States. , and then from the United States to both sides of the Taiwan Strait, analyzed the patent application status of the global semiconductor industry, which is of great reference value.

starts with the distribution of global semiconductor patents.

The SSIPEX report points out that the global patents and US patents in the report are based on the Orbit global patent database and analysis system (the global FamPat family database is used, and the US patents use the FULLPAT database), and the patent analysis objects are Published invention patents in the field of integrated circuits and . As for the Chinese patent part, the search and analysis tool is the CNIPR Patent Information Analysis System, the data source is the National Intellectual Property Office, and the analysis objects are Chinese invention patents and utility models that have been disclosed in the field of integrated circuits.

In addition, the statistical deadline is December 31, 2018. Since most of the patents applied for in 2017 and 2018 had not yet been made public at that time, the data for these two years in the report are for reference only. The

report shows that as of December 31, 2018, the global cumulative number of public patents in the field of integrated circuits was 2,067,708 patent families (retrieved in English), of which 619,162 were authorized and valid patent families, accounting for approximately 30% of the total. In 2018, there were a total of 172,383 published patents in the integrated circuit field, an increase of 0.8% over 2017.

Table 1. Patent distribution by industry in the global integrated circuit field

(patent family, unit: )

Table 1 shows the distribution of patent families in different industries in the global integrated circuit field. It is obvious that IC design accounts for the largest number, and wafers manufacturing comes second, with the packaging and testing industry accounting for the smallest proportion. However, no matter which industry, the number of patents and disclosed in 2018 was slightly lower than that in 2017.

U.S. integrated circuit patent application status

Table 2 shows the distribution of U.S. integrated circuit patent technology in different fields from 1985 to the end of 2018. It is obvious that chip design accounts for the largest number of patents, accounting for about 80% of the overall proportion; among them, analogy The number of IC patents ranks first. The number of patents in semiconductor manufacturing and packaging and testing accounted for 15% and 5% respectively. It is worth noting that the number of patents for advanced packaging technology accounts for 50% of the number of patents for packaging and testing technology, showing that the innovation activity of advanced packaging is very high.

Table 2. Patent technology layout in the field of integrated circuits in the United States

(cumulative number of publications from 1985 to the end of 2018)

Table 3 shows the top 20 patentees in the field of integrated circuits and their number of patents. Among the top 20 integrated circuit technology patents in the United States, the United States and Japan account for 8 companies each, but the number of patents is far greater than that of American manufacturers; the remaining 4 companies are China Taiwan TSMC, South Korea Samsung, and the Netherlands NXP and Swiss STMICRO. It is worth noting that Global Foundries, TSMC’s wafer foundry rival, is closely behind it in the number of U.S. patents, and the two have recently reached a long-term cross-licensing agreement. It is worth watching whether 1+1 can be greater than 2.

Table 3. Major patentees of U.S. published patents in the field of integrated circuits (top 20)

(1985~ Cumulative by the end of 2018)

China’s integrated circuit patent application status

Table 4 shows the patent technology layout in the field of integrated circuits in China. It is similar to the patent distribution in the United States. It also has the highest proportion in IC design. In addition, foreign patentees have the highest proportion in design, manufacturing and sealing. The number of patents for measurement technology accounts for a large proportion, namely 30%, 37% and 19%, which shows that foreign manufacturers attach great importance to China's integrated circuit market.

Table 4. Patent technology layout in the field of integrated circuits in China

(cumulative number of publications from 1985 to the end of 2018)

Table 5 shows the top 20 major patentees of China’s published patents in the field of integrated circuits as of the end of 2018, among which Chinese patentees There are 8 people, 4 of whom are from academic and research institutions; the rest are 5 from Japan, 3 from the United States, and 2 from South Korea. digits, China Taiwan 1 digits and Netherlands 1 digit. It is worth noting that the top 20 foreign integrated circuit patentees in China are also among the top in the United States. Among the top 12 foreign investors in China, 8 overlap, including Qualcomm, TSMC, Samsung, and Panasonic. , Fujitsu, Intel, IBM and Sony. For these manufacturers, China and the United States are key markets where they must concentrate their firepower.

Table 5. Main patentees of China’s public patents in the field of integrated circuits (top 20)

(Cumulative number of publications from 1985 to the end of 2018)

Table 6 shows the cumulative patent status of China’s top ten IC design factories as of the end of 2018 , its ranking is based on the company's revenue in 2018, not the number of patents. The author has mentioned before that because many of HiSilicon's IC design patents were applied for by and Huawei , although it ranks first among China's top 10 IC design companies, the total number of patents from China and the United States combined is only There are only 51. On the other hand, it can be seen from Table 6 that China's major IC design companies are very active in applying for patents in China, especially the top three manufacturers, Unisoc, Huada Semiconductor and Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics. It is worth mentioning that there are two companies in the table whose number of U.S. patents is much higher than their number of Chinese patents, namely OmniVision Technology and Beijing Silicon Semiconductor. The main reason is that these two manufacturers acquired American OmniVision Technology Co., Ltd. and ISSI respectively.

Table 6. Patent status of the top ten companies in China's IC design in 2018

(cumulative from 1985 to the end of 2018)

Table 7. Patent status of the top ten companies in China's wafer manufacturing industry in 2018

(1985~ Cumulative by the end of 2018)

Tables 7 and 8 are based on the public patent statistics of 10 IC manufacturers and 10 packaging and testing manufacturers in mainland China in China and the United States respectively provided by the China Semiconductor Industry Association. Considering that foreign companies headquartered overseas generally apply for patents in China in the name of their head offices, the parentheses in the table count the number of patent disclosures of their parent companies or groups.

Table 8. Patent status of the top ten companies in China's semiconductor packaging and testing in 2018

(cumulative from 1985 to the end of 2018)

Disclaimer: This article is originally created by the author. The content of the article is the personal opinion of the author. The reprinting by Semiconductor Industry Watch is only to convey a different point of view. It does not mean that Semiconductor Industry Watch agrees or supports the view. If you have any objections, please contact Semiconductor Industry Watch.

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