Gurtej Sandhu

Gurtej Singh Sandhu (born 24 October 1960 ) is an American inventor and semiconductor technologist who is widely recognized for his pioneering contributions to computer memory and solid-state storage.

Sandhu currently serves as Principal Fellow and Vice President at Micron Technology, where he has worked since 1990. Sandhu is among the world’s most prolific inventors, holding over 2,211 patents worldwide and 1,432 within the U.S, surpassing Thomas Edison’s record.

Early life and education Gurtej Singh Sandhu was born on 24 October 1960 in London to Indian Sikh parents. Both of his parents were PhD graduates from the University of London. Sandhu was raised in Amritsar, India, where his father was a chemistry professor at the Guru Nanak Dev University.

Influenced by his parents, Sandhu earned a Master of Science (Honours) in Physics from Guru Nanak Dev University, followed by a Master of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He moved to the United States, where he earned a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in 1990.

His innovations span several key processes in semiconductor manufacturing, including Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) of high-κ films for DRAM, pitch-doubling techniques for NAND flash scaling, and CVD Ti/TiN processes still used in DRAM and NAND fabrication.