This Indian-origin scientist has more US patents than Thomas Alva Edison himself
Gurtej Sandhu, an IIT Delhi alumnus living in Idaho, has racked up 1,299 US patents till date, which is more than the famed scientist Thomas Edison’s, which stood at 1,093.
History is littered with a slew of innovators and scientists who have redefined the way we live, work, and function. Be it Nikola Tesla’s work with electromagnetism, Rosalind Franklin’s contributions to DNA sequencing, or Alan Turing’s strides with artificial intelligence, the world’s best minds have birthed some crucial inventions and discoveries that have reshaped mankind.
India, too, has its own of bunch of inventors. Take Gurtej Sandhu, for instance. The IIT Delhi alumnus living in Idaho, US, has more patents than the famed inventor Thomas Edison himself. For the past 29 years, Gurtej has racked up 1,299 US patents. This is more than Edison, who had 1,093 US patents.
Gurtej Sandhu (Image: Idaho Statesman)
According to ScoopWhoop, Gurtej is currently serving as the Vice President of Micron Technology besides being an avid inventor.
So how did the interest towards invention develop? Gurtej, who was born in London to Indian parents, went on to pursue Electrical Engineering at IIT Delhi. Right after, he went to the US to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to pursue a doctorate in Physics.
During his PhD, the 58-year-old became interested in and skilful at integrated circuits. This garnered him two job offers, one from Texas Instruments and the other from Micron Technology, which at that time was struggling against the government-subsidised memory chip makers in Japan and other countries.
With two options in hand, Gurtej went to Micron in Boise and worked on Moore’s Law, and with time he found a way to cram more memory cells onto chips, making them more efficient. This led to the series of patents, which gained him the status of an inventor.
Gurtej Sandhu (Image: Idaho Statesman)
As Gurtej was working with Micron during the time the patent was filed, the patent was owned by the company, while Gurtej and his colleagues who worked on them received bonuses.
Also, for past 15 years Gurtej he has mentored engineering majors and faculty too at Boise State University which had fostered closer ties with Micron.
Speaking to Idaho Statesman about Gurtej’s mentoring, Will Hughes, Director of the university’s Micron School of Materials Science and Engineering, said,
“He has tremendous humility, in particular given the scale of impact that he’s had. And he has his finger on the pulse of emerging technology and emerging memory on the global scale.”
Not only did he get patents for his innovations, but he also lifted Micron which along with its competitor in Korea, like Samsung and SK Hynix accounts for 95 percent of the global DRAM market.
(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)
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