Gurtej Sandhu is an Indian inventor in the fields of thin film processes and materials, VLSI and semiconductor device fabrication. He is recognized for being the manas all-time sixth most prolific inventor in the world as measured by number of U.S. utility patents. Gurtej has 1,170 U.S. utility patents as of July 7, 2015[update]. Currently he is Senior Fellow and Director of Advanced Technology developments at Micron Technology, Inc. The publication Kiplinger 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 and a physics PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.