Korea's patent application growth rate in the neuromorphic semiconductor field was found to be the second highest in the world. Neuromorphic semiconductors are next-generation chips modeled after the human brain's neural network.
The Intellectual Property Office analyzed neuromorphic semiconductor patents filed with the world's five major intellectual property offices (IP5) in Korea, the United States, China, the European Union (EU) and Japan from 2003 to 2024, and found that Korea's patent application growth rate was 39.1% over 22 years, ranking second in the world after China (39.3%). The number of patent applications was 702, ranking third after the United States with 1,528 and China with 839.
By applicant, IBM (345) and Qualcomm (299) ranked first and second, respectively. Among Korean institutions, Samsung Electronics ranked third with 183, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) sixth with 85, SK hynix seventh with 84, and Seoul National University ninth with 56, placing four institutions among the top 10 high-volume applicants.
Neuromorphic semiconductors can perform computations with less power than conventional methods and are expected to be actively used across various advanced application technology fields, including Autonomous Driving and intelligent robots, biometric recognition, medical diagnostics, and edge devices.
The market, valued at $28.5 million last year, is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 89.7% to reach $1.3252 billion in 2030.
Kim Hee-tae, head of the Semiconductor Examination Promotion Team at the Intellectual Property Office, said, "As the technology maturity of neuromorphic semiconductors increases, competition to secure patent rights for commercializing leading technologies is intensifying," and added, "We will build a cooperative system with related agencies and share patent analysis results with industry so that our corporations can lead the neuromorphic semiconductor technology field."