Gurtej Sandhu, the Indian vice president of Micron, is the seventh-ranked inventor in the world

Indian-born scientist Gurtej Sandhu reportedly holds 1,325 patents, surpassing Edison's 1,084 patents and ranking seventh on the global inventor list.

Gurtej Sandhu currently lives in Idaho, USA, and is the vice president of Micron and also an inventor.

After obtaining a degree in electrical engineering from IIT Delhi, Gurtej received a PhD in physics from the University of North Carolina in 1990.

Standing at the crossroads between choosing between the top computer memory manufacturers in the United States or startups, Gurtej chose the startup at the time, Micron. This opportunity would obviously give him more room for growth and adventure.

Gurtej obtained his first few patents while working with Micron. He was working to maintain the number of transistors in integrated circuits doubling every year as required by Moore's Law.

He calculated how many memory cells could be accommodated in these chips, and since he successfully invented the key technology of memory, chip manufacturers around the world have used Gurtej's patents and benefited from them.

Gurtej has also experimented and innovated in large-scale projects such as self-driving cars and big data, which have broken his patent list.

"Sandhu developed a method to coat microchips with titanium without exposing the metal to oxygen, which could damage the chips," said Kiplinger, a Washington-based publisher of business forecasts. "Initially, he thought his idea was not very important, but now most memory chip manufacturers use the process."

Sandhu was awarded the Andrew S. Grove Award for his outstanding contributions to solid-state devices and technology from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

IEEE officials said: "Sandhu's pioneering achievements in patterning and materials integration have enabled the continuation of Moore's Law, and he has aggressively expanded the technology of memory chips, which are an essential component of consumer electronics such as mobile phones, digital cameras, and solid-state drives for personal and cloud server computers."

Gurtej Sandhu is one of the few Indian inventors to have been awarded so many patents.

About Gurtej Sandhu

Gurtej Sandhu is a Senior Fellow and Vice President at Micron Technology. In his current position, he is responsible for Micron’s end-to-end (Si-to-Package) R&D technology roadmap. The scope includes driving cross-functional coordination across departments and business units to proactively identify technology gaps, manage engineering organizational resources and execute on developing innovative technology solutions for future memory expansion. Dr. Sandhu’s responsibilities include leading multiple internal project teams around the world and managing interactions with research consortia around the world.

At Micron, Dr. Sandhu has held several engineering and management positions. He has been actively involved in various IC processing process technologies and has pioneered multiple process technologies currently used in mainstream semiconductor chip manufacturing.

Dr. Sandhu received his degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi and his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1990. He holds more than 1,300 U.S. patents and is recognized as one of the world’s top inventors. Dr. Sandhu is a Fellow of the IEEE. In 2018, he received the IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award for his outstanding contributions to silicon CMOS process technology, which enables the scaling of DRAM and NAND memory chips.