James Robert Biard (May 20, 1931 – September 23, 2022) was an American electrical engineer and inventor who held 73 U.S. patents. Some of his more significant patents include the first infrared light-emitting diode (LED),Biard's presentation "The Invention Of The LED" delivered at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) in 2002 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIe7tkjVqQ the optical isolator,US Patent 3304431, Biard, James R., "Photosensitive Transistor Chopper Using Light Emissive Diode", Filed: November 29, 1963, Issued: February 14, 1967. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3304431.pdf Schottky clamped logic circuits,US Patent 3463975, Biard, James R., "Unitary Semiconductor High Speed Switching Device Utilizing a Barrier Diode", Filed: December 31, 1964, Issued: August 26, 1969. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3463975.pdf silicon metal–oxide–semiconductor read-only memory (MOS ROM),US Patent 3541543, Biard, James R. and R. H. Crawford, "MOS Binary Decoder", Filed: July 25, 1966, Issued: November 17, 1970. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3541543.pdf a low bulk leakage current avalanche photodetector, and fiber-optic data links. In 1980, Biard became a member of the staff of Texas A&M University as an adjunct professor of electrical engineering. In 1991, he was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to semiconductor light-emitting diodes and lasers, Schottky-clamped logic, and read-only memories.
Early life Bob grew up and attended school in Paris, Texas. His father, James Christopher "Jimmy" Biard of Biardstown, worked as a farmer and a Dr. Pepper route salesman for the local Dr. Pepper company. Bob’s mother, Mary Ruth Biard (née Bills), worked as a retail sales person at the Collegiate Shop in downtown Paris. She also sang in quartets at weddings and funerals. When Bob was a child, his pediatrician recommended a diet of mashed overripe bananas, stewed apples, and homemade dried cottage cheese as a remedy for digestive issues. As a Dr. Pepper salesman, Jimmy knew all of the local grocery store owners and they would save the overripe bananas for Bob. Mary would make the cottage cheese by placing unpasteurized milk in a cup towel and hanging it on an outdoor clothes line.
Jimmy eventually became manager of the local 7-Up company and ended up buying it from the former owner."Jimmy Biard Is Now Owner of 7-Up Firm". The Paris News, 18 Mar. 1956, p. 22. He also sold used cars, worked as a master plumber at Camp Maxey (an army camp north of Paris) during and after WW-II, and did plumbing work for homes and businesses in the Paris area. While in high school, Bob worked for his father and an off duty fireman, who was also a plumber, during the summer as a plumber's assistant. Later in life, Jimmy became chief deputy sheriff in Lamar County, Texas.
Education Biard attended Paris High School from 1944-48. After receiving an associate degree from Paris Junior College in 1951, he transferred to Texas A&M University in College Station, TX where he received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering (June 1954), an M.S. in Electrical Engineering (January 1956), and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (May 1957). Among the scholarships he received were the Dow-Corning Award in 1953-54, and the Westinghouse and Texas Power & Light fellowships throughout his graduate work. He was also a member of IRE, Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, Phi Kappa Phi, and an associate member of Sigma Xi.
From 1956-57, Biard worked part-time as an instructor of undergraduate Electrical Engineering courses. He also worked part-time as an Assistance Research Engineer for the Texas Engineering Experiment Station in charge of operation and maintenance of EESEAC, the Station's analog computer. During grad school, he also designed several vacuum tube DC amplifiers. His PhD dissertation was entitled, "Further Investigation of Electronic Multiplication of Voltages By Use of Logarithms". While a student at Texas A&M, he met his wife Amelia Ruth Clark. They married on May 23, 1952, and later moved to Richardson, Texas.
Career
Texas Instruments
On June 3, 1957, Biard was hired, along with his former Texas A&M professor Walter T. "Walt" Matzen, as an engineer for Texas Instruments Inc. in Dallas, TX. From 1957-59, as part of the Research and Development (R&D) Dept. of the Semiconductor Components (SC) Division, Biard worked with Walt to develop and patent one of the first low-drift DC amplifier circuits using transistors.US Patent 3046487, James R. Biard and Walter T. Matzen, "Differential Transistor Amplifier", Filed: March 21, 1958, Issued: July 24, 1962. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3046487.pdf
In the summer of 1958, Texas Instruments hired Jack Kilby (the inventor of the integrated circuit). According to Biard, during TI's annual two-week summer shutdown, "At the time we were new, so we had to work while the others were on vacation. He would often come by and talk to us." Kilby held more than 60 U.S. patents, including two with Biard. Biard later stated, "I had the pleasure of being the co-inventor on two of his 60 patents. It was an honor to have my name with his."
In 1959-60, Biard collaborated with other engineers at Texas Instruments on the design, construction, and patent of one of the first completely automatic transistor testing facilities known as SMART, the Sequential Mechanism for Automatic Recording and Testing.US Patent 3235802, James R. Biard, "Programmable apparatus for automatically and sequentially performing a plurality of tests on a transistor", Filed: September 21, 1960, Issued: February 15, 1966. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3235802.pdf He also developed, and later patented, a low-frequency reactance amplifierGB Patent 1017095, James R. Biard, "Electrical Reactance Amplifiers", Filed: May 22, 1962, Issued: January 12, 1966. http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=GB&NR=1017095A&KC=A&FT=D&date=19660112&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_EP G.B. Patent 1,017,095 with undetectable "flicker" noise for seismic applications.P. D. Davis and G. D. Ezell, "Subaudio parametric amplifier for ocean-bottom seismometer", Electronics magazine, Vol. 36, pp. 28-31; March 1, 1963.
The GaAs IR Light-Emitting Diode In 1959, Biard and Gary Pittman were assigned to work together in the Semiconductor Research and Development Laboratory (SRDL) on a project to create GaAs varactor diodes for X-band parametric amplifiers to be used in radar receivers. This project also facilitated the development of GaAs tunnel diodes designed for logic circuits, oscillators, amplifiers, memory units, and other applications requiring a high voltage swing and high operating temperature. On March 21, 1960, at the opening of the 1960 IRE International Convention, TI announced availability of the first GaAs diffused junction varactor diode, the XD500,Texas Instruments Inc., "First Gallium Arsenide Varactor Diode Announced By Texas Instruments Incorporated at 1960 IRE Show", New Product News Release; March 21, 1960. and the 1N650 seriesTexas Instruments Inc., "Commercial Availability of Gallium Arsenide Tunnel Diodes Announced By Texas Instruments", New Product News Release; March 21, 1960. GaAs tunnel diodes.
In September 1961, Biard and Pittman discovered infrared light emission from a forward biased tunnel diode they had constructed on gallium arsenide (GaAs) semi-insulating substrate. Using an infrared image converter microscope recently brought in from Japan, they discovered all of the GaAs varactor diodes and tunnel diodes they had manufactured at the time emitted infrared light. By October 1961, they demonstrated efficient light emission and signal coupling between a GaAs p-n junction light emitter and an electrically isolated semiconductor photodetector.
On August 8, 1962, Biard and Pittman filed a patent describing a zinc diffused p-n junction LED with spaced cathode contacts to allow for efficient emission of infrared light under forward bias. After four years spent establishing the priority of their work based on engineering notebooks, the U.S. patent office determined their work predated submissions from G.E. Labs, RCA Research Labs, IBM Research Labs, Bell Labs, and Lincoln Labs at MIT. As a result, the two inventors were issued U.S. patent 3,293,513US Patent 3293513, Biard, James R. and Gary Pittman, "Semiconductor Radiant Diode", Filed: August 8, 1962, Issued: December 20, 1966. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3293513.pdf for the GaAs infrared (IR) light-emitting diode. Most other organized research seeking LEDs at the time used II-VI semiconductors like cadmium sulfide (CdS) and cadmium telluride (CdTe), while Biard and Pittman's patent used gallium arsenide (GaAs), a III/V semiconductor. After filing the patent, TI immediately began a project to manufacture infrared diodes.
On October 26, 1962, TI announced the first commercial LED product, the SNX-100.Texas Instruments Inc., "First GaAs Infrared Light Source Announced By Texas Instruments", News Release; October 26, 1962. It sold for a price of $130 per unit. The SNX-100 employed a pure GaAs crystal to emit a 900 nm light output. It used gold-zinc for the P-type contact and tin alloy for the N-type contact. TI gave Biard and Pittman $1.00 each for their patent.
In October 1963, TI announced the first commercial hemispherical LED, the SNX-110.
The IBM Card Verifier was the first commercial device to use infrared LEDs. The LEDs replaced tungsten bulbs that controlled punched card readers. Infrared light was sent through the holes or blocked by the card, which not only significantly reduced the size and power required, but also improved the reliability. In November 1978, Tom M. Hyltin, a former engineering manager at Texas Instruments, published a book titled "The Digital Electronic Watch", in which he cited Biard and Gary Pittman's 1961 discovery as being fundamentally important to the creation of the digital wrist-watch.
In August 2013, during a recollection of the patent, Biard stated: