Gurtej Singh Sandhu, also known as Gurtej Sandhu, is an inventor in the fields of

thin film A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer ( monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many ...

processes and materials,

VLSI Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) ...

and

semiconductor device fabrication Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuit (IC) chips such as modern computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips such as NAND flash and DRAM that are p ...

. He is recognized for being the all-time seventh most

prolific inventor The 100 known most prolific inventors based on worldwide utility patents are shown in the following table. While in many cases this is the number of utility patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, it may include utility p ...

as measured by number of U.S. utility patents. Gurtej has 1382 U.S. utility patents . He was Senior Fellow and Director of Advanced Technology Developments at Micron Technology, before becoming Senior Fellow and Vice President of Micron Technology. The publication

Kiplinger Kiplinger ( ) is an American publisher of business forecasts and personal finance advice which is a subsidiary of Future plc. Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc., was a closely held company managed for more than nine decades by three generations ...

reports, "Sandhu developed a method of coating microchips with titanium without exposing the metal to oxygen, which would ruin the chips. Initially, he didn't think his idea was a big deal, but now most memory-chip makers use the process." The publication also states that Gurtej earned an electrical engineering degree at the Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi in India and a physics PhD at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) awarded Sandhu the 2018

IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award The IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award is a Technical Field Award presented by the IEEE for outstanding contributions to solid-state devices and technology. The award may be presented to an individual or a team of up to three people. It was established ...

for outstanding contributions to

solid-state device Solid-state electronics means semiconductor electronics: electronic equipment using semiconductor devices such as transistors, diodes and integrated circuits (ICs). The term is also used as an adjective for devices in which semiconductor electro ...

s and

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...

. They said his "pioneering achievements concerning patterning and materials integration have enabled the continuation of

Moore’s Law Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empiri ...

for aggressive scaling of memory chips integral to consumer electronics products such as

cell phones A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

digital cameras A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices ...

and

solid-state drives A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It i ...

for personal and

cloud server A virtual private server (VPS) is a virtual machine sold as a service by an Internet hosting service. The virtual dedicated server (VDS) also has a similar meaning. A virtual private server runs its own copy of an operating system (OS), and cus ...

computers." The IEEE states: "Sandhu initiated the development of atomic layer deposition high-k films for DRAM devices and helped drive cost-effective implementation starting with 90-nm

node In general, a node is a localized swelling (a "knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex). Node may refer to: In mathematics * Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph *Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, lines ...

DRAM. Extreme device scaling was also made possible through his pitch-doubling process, which led to the first 3X-nm

NAND flash Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use ...

memory. Sandhu’s method for constructing large-area straight-wall capacitors enabled the formation of double-sided capacitors that extended the scaling of important one-transistor, one-capacitor ( 1T1C) device technologies. His process for CVD Ti/

TiN Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

is still in use for making DRAM and NAND chips."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sandhu, Gurtej 20th-century Indian inventors Indian patent holders Micron Technology people