Sadeg Faris

Sadeg Faris was brought up in Tripoli in a poor family. His father died when he was ten years old and he was raised with his mother. He won a scholarship from Esso Libya to go to college in the US.

Faris received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in 1969, 1971 and 1976 in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, from the University of California, Berkeley. His PhD thesis project was completed in 1976 and was called "Characteristics of Metal-Barrier-Metal Diodes and Their Applications".{{cite web|title=Ph.D. Dissertations|url=https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/Dissertations/Faculty/gustafson.html|publisher=EECS at UC Berkeley|accessdate=11 August 2017}}

Upon graduating from Berkeley Faris joined the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center labs in Yorktown, NY, and became part of a group working on developing chips exploiting the Josephson effect. In 1983 while he was at IBM he proposed the "quiteron," a superconducting three-terminal, three layer switching device similar to a transistor. It was distinct from superconductive Josephson junctions, and was instead designed on principles of quantum tunneling by injecting quasiparticles through the two thin insulator layers separating the three superconducting layers.[https://books.google.com/books?id=jQEjRCG4E7UC Superconducting highway to low-noise chips]. New Scientist, February 10, 1983, p. 369.{{cite news|title=A New Device From I.B.M.|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/01/business/a-new-device-from-ibm.html|work=Associated Press via The New York Times|date=1 February 1983}}{{cite journal|last1=Schwarzschild|first1=Bertram M.|title=Quiteron superconducting switch acts like a transistor|journal=Physics Today|date=May 1983|volume=36|issue=5|pages=19–21|doi=10.1063/1.2915654|bibcode=1983PhT....36e..19S}}{{cite journal|last1=Faris|first1=S.|last2=Raider|first2=S.|last3=Gallagher|first3=W.|last4=Drake|first4=R.|title=Quiteron|journal=IEEE Transactions on Magnetics|date=May 1983|volume=19|issue=3|pages=1293–1295|doi=10.1109/TMAG.1983.1062499|bibcode=1983ITM....19.1293F}} The original quiteron consisted of three superconducting layers. Two layers were made of niobium, the third of lead-indium-gold alloy. They were insulated with silicon monoxide and niobium oxide layers. As of 2011 quiterons were not commercially used.{{cite journal|last1=Nevirkovets|first1=I. P.|last2=Chernyashevskyy|first2=O.|last3=Ketterson|first3=J. B.|last4=Pan|first4=A. V.|title=Multi-Terminal Superconducting Nonequilibrium Device With a Ferromagnetic Screen|journal=IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity|date=June 2011|volume=21|issue=3|pages=721–723|doi=10.1109/TASC.2010.2084551|bibcode=2011ITAS...21..721N|s2cid=20979818 }}

In the fall of 1983 IBM shut down its efforts to develop chips based on superconductive Josephson junctions, as did Bell Labs and Sperry at around the same time.{{cite journal|last1=Robinson|first1=Arthur L.|title=IBM Drops Superconducting Computer Project: Problems with a high-speed memory chip would delay a Josephson junction computer long enough for semiconductors to catch up|journal=Science|date=4 November 1983|volume=222|issue=4623|pages=492–494|doi=10.1126/science.222.4623.492|pmid=17746190|language=en|issn=0036-8075}}

In April 1983 Faris had left IBM to found Hypres to commercialize work he had done at IBM; the company licensed patents from IBM.{{cite news|title=Sadeg Faris - Evionyx Inc|url=https://www.twst.com/interview/sadeg-faris-evionyx-inc|work=The Wall Street Transcript|date=18 June 2002}} Hypres at first developed and sold a Josephson sampling oscilloscope and later became a low-temperature superconductor foundry.{{cite journal|last1=Malozemoff|first1=A. P.|last2=Gallagher|first2=W. J.|last3=Greene|first3=R. L.|last4=Laibowitz|first4=R. B.|last5=Tsuei|first5=C. C.|title=Superconductivity at IBM - a Centennial Review: Part II – Materials and Physics|journal=IEEE/CSC & ESAS European Superconductivity News Forum|date=July 2012|issue=20|url=http://snf.ieeecsc.org/sites/ieeecsc.org/files/RN28e-2.pdf}}{{cite journal|title=Inside front cover: Hypres Oscilloscope Advertisement|journal=IEEE Spectrum|date=1987|volume=24|issue=11|pages=c2|doi=10.1109/MSPEC.1987.6448112}}

In 1990 Faris founded Reveo with a vision of following Thomas Edison's model of applying science to generate new products, and spinning them out into new companies.{{cite web | title = Dr. Sadeg Faris - Bio | work = Reveo: Executives | publisher = Reveo | url = http://www.reveo.com/sadeg-faris.htm?page=inf | accessdate = 2007-04-20 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20070928010503/http://www.reveo.com/sadeg-faris.htm?page=inf |archivedate = 2007-09-28}}

In October 2003 Reveo and the Government of Malaysia started a research and development centre named InventQjaya; the goal of the government was to achieve technological sovereignty by 2020. The arrangements were based on Faris' relationship with Mahathir Mohamad, who was then the prime minister.{{cite news|last1=Wan|first1=Wong Sai|last2=Charles|first2=Lourdes|title=Accounts of IT company frozen - Nation|url=http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2005/02/03/accounts-of-it-company-frozen/|work=The Star Online|date=3 February 2005}}{{cite news|last1=Razak|first1=Datuk Seri Nazir|title=Addressing the elephant in the room|url=https://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/10/addressing-elephant-room|work=New Straits Times Online|date=6 October 2015|language=en}} The center was set up a wholly owned subsidiary of Reveo and was funded by the government; the government committed to a total of RM437mil in funding and had made RM228mil available as of February 2005, when the government froze the accounts of InventQjaya. The accounts were frozen based on allegations made by the Malaysian independent directors who had been appointed to the board of InventQjaya that Faris' claims about the technology he wanted to commercialize through InventQjaya might be fraudulent, as well as claims by InventQjaya's recently fired chief financial officer that RM50mil in funds had been inappropriately transferred to Reveo. The seizure order was lifted in January 2006.{{cite news|title=Police revoke seizure order issued against InventQjaya - Nation|url=http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2006/01/10/police-revoke-seizure-order-issued-against-inventqjaya/|work=The Star Online|date=10 January 2006}}

By 2007, Reveo said that it had spun out four companies: eVionyx in New York and Taiwan for metal fuel cells, VRex in New York for 3-D stereoscopic imaging, purOgen in New York for oxygen separation technology, and Chelix in California for cholesteric liquid crystal applications.

As of 2008, Reveo was developing a single molecule DNA sequencing technology that used physical probes, each tuned to one of four frequencies, to sense nucleotides.{{cite journal|title=Metagenomics: Exploring unseen communities|first=Nathan|last=Blow|date=29 May 2008|journal=Nature|volume=453|issue=7195|pages=687–690|pmid=18509446|doi=10.1038/453687a|bibcode=2008Natur.453..687B|s2cid=29079319 |doi-access=free}}{{cite news|last1=Schiamberg|first1=Bruce A.|title=Reveo's direct DNA sequencing using tunneling microscopy|url=https://thefutureofbiomolecules.wordpress.com/tag/sadeg-faris/|work=The Future of Biomolecules Blog|date=2010|language=en}}

In 2009 the New York Intellectual Property Law Association named him 2009 Inventor of the Year.{{cite web|title=Inventor of the Year Awardees|url=https://www.nyipla.org/nyipla/InventoroftheYearAward.asp|publisher=NYIPLA|accessdate=11 August 2017|language=en}}

Sadeg Faris lives with his family in NYC.{{cn|date=July 2023}}

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Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni

Category:Living people

Category:Libyan emigrants to the United States

Category:1946 births