Company patents
SK keyfoundry Inc.
SK keyfoundry Inc. shows a surprising shift in its patent strategy, moving away from core semiconductor fabrication and design. While Semiconductor Diodes & Transistors remains its largest category at 40.7% of its portfolio, it saw a significant decline of 40.9% in 2026 so far, and categories like Transistor & Device Structure and Integrated Circuit Layout & Arrangement have seen a complete cessation of new patents in 2026. Conversely, the company demonstrated an emerging focus in 2025 with rapid growth in Semiconductor Packaging & Encapsulation (450.0% YoY) and Memory & Storage (Static) (233.3% YoY), though patenting in these areas has also sharply declined in 2026.
Patent Trend by Technology Area
Yearly patent publications since 2023
Product themes
Product-level themes inferred from filings since 2023, with category chips showing where each theme appears. Select a theme to filter the patents below.
86 US filings (since 2023) · 11 categories · 21 themes
Advanced techniques for forming and optimizing gate dielectrics, work function layers, and other dielectric layers within transistor structures to improve performance, reliability, and scaling.
Novel materials and processes for forming low-resistance electrical contacts and interconnects within semiconductor devices, including selective deposition, silicidation, and barrier layers for improved performance and scaling.
Techniques and methodologies for fabricating semiconductor devices, including etching, deposition, annealing, isolation, and doping steps, aimed at improving yield, performance, or enabling new structures.
Design and operation of transistors optimized for memory applications, including floating body devices, ferroelectric FETs (FeFETs), vertical TFTs for 3D arrays, and charge-trapping memory cells.
Development of memory cells utilizing resistive switching or phase-change materials, including novel material compositions, multi-layered structures, and integration with selector devices like bipolar junction transistors, to achieve non-volatile storage.
Development and manufacturing of semiconductor devices using wide bandgap materials like Silicon Carbide (SiC) or Gallium Nitride (GaN) for high-power, high-frequency, or high-temperature applications.
Focuses on the physical design, materials, and manufacturing processes for individual memory cells, including transistor structures, interconnects, and multi-layered (3D) architectures to enhance density and performance.
Techniques for stacking multiple semiconductor dies or active layers vertically to achieve higher density and shorter interconnections, often utilizing through-silicon vias (TSVs) or other vertical conductive paths like through-hole electrodes.
Focuses on the physical design, materials, and methods for packaging capacitors and integrating them onto circuit boards, including external electrode structures, conductive adhesives, and mounting techniques to ensure reliable electrical and mechanical connections.
Manufacturing processes and structural designs for transistors utilizing fin-shaped channels or multiple gates (e.g., FinFETs, Gate-All-Around FETs) to enhance gate control and reduce short-channel effects.
Focuses on the design and manufacturing of transistors where the gate material fully encircles the channel, often using nanosheets or fins, to improve electrostatic control and reduce short-channel effects.
Hardware and control techniques for optimizing memory access latency, ensuring data integrity, and managing storage resources efficiently. This includes error correction, read/write voltage control, and intelligent data placement or in-memory computation.
Focuses on the architectural and circuit-level innovations for Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs) and Digital-to-Analog Converters (DACs) to improve speed, accuracy, linearity, and power efficiency. Includes specific types like SAR and Delta-Sigma, and their constituent components.
Design and operation of analog and mixed-signal circuits within the memory array, such as page buffers, sense amplifiers, and data latches, responsible for reading and writing data from/to memory cells.
Digital logic and control circuits for managing power delivery, driving various loads (e.g., inductive, display elements), converting power, and protecting against over-voltage or electrostatic discharge. Includes gate drivers for power FETs and voltage level shifters.
Involves the development of novel materials and porous structures for the electrodes of supercapacitors and other electrochemical energy storage devices, aiming for high charge density, improved performance, and flexibility.
Focuses on the internal and external structural elements, material compositions (e.g., ceramic dielectrics, electrode metals), and manufacturing techniques used to create multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs), including aspects like mechanical robustness and internal circuitry.
Explores the composition and integration of solid or gel-based electrolyte materials within various capacitor types, such as solid electrolytic capacitors and supercapacitors, to enhance performance, stability, and safety.
Circuits and techniques for generating, synchronizing, interpolating, and recovering high-frequency clock signals and high-speed data streams, often involving reduced propagation delay, multi-level signaling, and robust sampling mechanisms.
Structural innovations in individual transistors, such as fin-based field-effect transistors (FinFETs), 3D gate structures, or multi-layer active regions, aimed at improving performance or density.
Methods and architectures for processing digital signals to enhance quality, remove noise, manage group delay, and facilitate symbol decision, often involving digital filters and equalization techniques.
Patents
Showing 1-10 of 86