Components naming

"Olivier Scalbert"

** Mostly it is not organised at all - but some countries have industry organizations that attempt to catalogue and rationalise the huge number of semiconductor parts that have been created. ** The "2N..... " series covered by " JADEC " = a US based industry organization.

Use Google for more on JADEC.

** Fairchild developed the original device called " uA741 " back in 68 - at a hunch "uA" stands for "micro Amplifier" .

Then National Semiconductor made a version of it called LM741 " - "LM" standing for " Linear Monolithic".

The 2, 3 and 4 numbers relate mostly to when, in a long line of device development, a particular one originated.

There is not a great deal to be learnt from studying the numbers, except maybe to identify if the device was originally of US, Asian or European origin.

For example, all " 2S ..... " numbers are originally of Asian origin.

.... Phil

Thanks for the infos and for the links Phil ! Olivier

Close. Fairchild used 'µ' on their ICs and the 'A' was for analog so µA indicates that it is an analog IC.

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Not *ALL* 2S transistors are Asian, Texas Instruments produced 2S type numbers following their earlier 2G types.

2N prefixes refer to the number of junctions, there is no specific nomenclature to determine what the number will turn out to be the numbers are simply assigned to new devices in serial fashion as they are developed.

Obviously diodes start with 1N as they only have one junction, 3N can be many things such as JFETs with a substrate connection or bipolar transistors with dual emitters etc.

"ian field" "Phil Allison"

** What an extraordinarily obscure fact - seems the G and S refer to Germanium and Silicon types.

Naturally I was thinking of the all the thousands of 2SA , 2SB, 2SC or 2SD prefix types that originate in Asia and are found in damn near everything.

.... Phil

JEDEC actually.

Graham

And LH was linear Hybrid. DM was Digital Monolithic.

Goodness knows where all the other ones came from. Like RCA's CD = CMOS Digital ? And there were definitely CA = CMOS Analog ICs too like the CA3140.

Philips' P is simple. Processor. TL = Texas Linear ?

Graham

And then you get 'house numbers' too like RCA's 40411 and TI's TIP series (Texas Instruments Power ?).

Not to mention all the European Pro-Electron devices. First letter A is Germaniun or B for silicon. Then it starts getting complicated. Another A should be a diode (small signal only?), C a general purpose transistor. F is a high frequency transistor. D is a power device. BZYs and BZXs are zeners IIRC (why 2 types or maybe only one is power diode and the other a zener). Etc.

Graham

(Texas

should

Interesting. I did not remember me that AC127 AC128 AC132 were germanium transistors ! And by the way there is also the OCxx family ...

Olivier

Did anyone ever clear up whether it was an 0 or an o ?

Some people maintain that its 0 (zero) for no heater while others insist that its an o.

zed.

Actually, 'CA' prefix was for all RCA analog ICs, like CA741 and CA3080 (neither of which had any MOS or CMOS character).

JEDEC (Joint Electron Devices Engineering Council) system borrows the vacuum-tube 'first digit =3D number of electrodes minus 1' syntax (thus, 1Nxxx for diodes, 2Nxxx for triodes like bipolar transistors, or FET transistors, or thyristors, 3Nxxx for some dual- gate FETs, and 4Nxxx numbers for some optoisolators).

"JIS" is, I believe, the Japanese system, same number syntax but the second letter indicates function (2SAxxx and 2SBxxx are PNP bipolar, 2SCxxx and 2SDxxx are NPN, 2SJxxx are P-channel FETs or MOSFETs and 2SKxxx are N-channel).

For more, see

Presumably, any manufacturer that can meet the published specifications can make a 2N2222 transistor, it isn't a trademark at all. A TIP31 transistor, on the other hand, 'Texas Instrument Plastic', is presumably not a second-sourced part until/unless TI allows it? Motorola, and perhaps others, DOES offer TIP31... That does puzzle me. Can anyone fill in the story on this?

'

Oops - that's misleading; in vacuum tubes the rule was first digits :=3D heater voltage followed by some letters, then more digits :=3D number of electrodes minus 1 then more letters

How quickly we forget...

(Texas

should

(why 2

I think the OCs may have been earlier as there was an OC71 small signal device and an OC35 and/or36 ? power (35W?) device in TO-3 so they weren't distinguishing them then.

OC71s were painted with black paint over a glass tube and it was popular for hobbyists to scrath the paint off to make a photo-transistor. The AC's above were in a metal can to prevent such tomfoolery ! And I vaguely remember some AD161/162 TO-66 complementary output pair. Hah ! Pd = 6W !

Tj max 90C !

Graham

The capital letter O without doubt. Might even have some kicking around. I think I had some GET102s as well..

Graham

If it's a voltage regulator tooooob, then it's zero (for zero filament voltage; cold-cathode tooooobz don't have a heater).

Cheers! Rich

I have a component draw reserved for germanium devices - in pride of place is a small stash of genuine new OCP71s

We were discussing early British transistors.

Transistors like the AC126 were just displacing the older OC types back in the days when I had to save up 2 weeks pocket money for a single AC126.