Gurtej Singh Sandhu

Gurtej Singh Sandhu is a Prolific Inventor and has the record of the highest number of patents ever issued to a person of Indian origin. Gurtej has 1375 patents and works at Micron.

Records held by Gurtej Singh Sandhu:

  • Highest number of patents ever issued to a person of Indian origin (see complete list)
  • 6th Highest number of patents ever issued to an person (Worldwide)

The second person from India is Sarbajit Kumar Rakshit with 753 patents making the gap between the 1st and 2nd position to be more than 600 patents.

Name: Gurtej Singh Sandhu
Patents: 1375
Associated: Micron Technology
First patent on: 1991
Education: PhD (Electrical Engineering)

  • B. Tech in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT, Delhi)
  • PhD in Electrical Engineering from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
    Award: IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award in 2018

He is a notable employee of Micron Technology, a company developing Computer memory and data storage devices such as RAM and USB. He was a major player in driving the growth of Micron in early 2000s.

Background of Gurtej Singh Sandhu

Gurtej Singh Sandhu was born in London (in 24th October 1960) to parents of Indian origin (Sarjit Sandhu and Gurmit Sandhu) and moved to India at the age of 3 years in 1963.

He completed in Bachelors' degree in India from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi following which he moved to United States of America (USA). IIT, Delhi is known to be one of the best premium Engineering Institute in India ranking in top 3 nationally.

He moved in USA in 1985.

Gurtej completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Initially, Gurtej's career has been as follows:

  • Process development engineer at Micron Technology (1989-1991)
  • Senior engineer at Micron Technology (1991-1993)
  • Section head at Micron Technology (1993)

Currently, Gurtej works as Senior Fellow and Director of Technology Development at Micron Technology, USA.

From a personal point of view, Gurtej got married in 21st June 1987 and has 2 children.

He is associated with Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), Amritsar and helps in running the University founded in 2007.

Patents by Gurtej Singh Sandhu

Gurtej Singh Sandhu holds the record for the most patents by an Indian. He has over 1340 utility patents and is Senior Fellow and Vice President at Micron Technology. He works in the field of Electrical Engineering.

Gurtej's first patent was in 1991 at the age of 31.

Gurtej's research focus is on:

  • Thin film processing
  • VLSI and semiconductor device fabrication

Significant contributions by Gurtej Singh Sandhu:

  • Started development of atomic layer deposition high-k films for DRAM devices at Micron in 2000 along with Trung T. Doan
  • Helped initiate cost effective implementation of 90 nanometer node DRAM
  • Developed a pitch doubling process which made it possible for high device scaling
  • His inventions resulted in 3X nanometer NAND flash memory
  • Developed method for constructing large area straight wall capacitors
  • His methods for CVD Ti/TiNi is used in making DRAM and NAND industry wide.

He is a notable researcher in this field.

Some Example patents by Gurtej Singh Sandhu:

  • Resonator for thermo optic device
  • Chemical vapor deposition of titanium
  • Waveguide for thermo optic device
  • Enhanced atomic layer deposition
  • Resistive heater for thermo optic device
  • Process for growing a dielectric layer on a silicon-containing surface using a mixture of NO and O
  • Atomic layer deposition and conversion
  • Small grain size, conformal aluminum interconnects and method for their formation
  • Memory device with chemical vapor deposition of titanium for titanium silicide contacts
  • Apparatus having a titanium alloy layer
  • Use of DAR coating to modulate the efficiency of laser fuse blows
  • Conductive container structures having a dielectric cap
  • Chemical vapor deposition of titanium
  • Slurry with chelating agent for chemical-mechanical polishing of a semiconductor wafer and methods related thereto
  • Methods of forming a contact having titanium formed by chemical vapor deposition
  • DRAM and NAND memory chip scaling
  • A method to coat microchips with titanium without exposing the metal to oxygen
  • Method to develop atomic layer deposition high-k films for DRAM devices

All Patent by Gurtej Singh Sandhu on USPTO

With this article at OpenGenus, you must have a strong idea of the achievements of Gurtej Singh Sandhu and his journey to achieving such vast number of patents.