Historic 1962 Fairchild 2N1613 Transistor: The First Planar Device Ever Produced For Sale

For sale is one genuine 1962 Fairchild 2N1613 in mint condition. Not just any transistor, the 2N1613 was a historic milestone and is the device that opened the door to the manufacture of modern electronics. It was the very first transistor sold that was constructed by the silicon planar process. Virtually all modern integrated circuits are based on this process today. Well over fifty years old they have been in an unopened box since the year they were made. Early Fairchild transistors have a three digit date code. Digit 1 represents the year, and digit 2-3 represent the week. These 2N1613s have a 1962 31st week date and the box they came from is marked as a contract item purchased by Raytheon in October of 1962. They are the very same Fairchild transistors featured at semiconductormuseum.com and computerhistory.org.
Planar Process Development
Fairchild Semiconductor's core was formed by eight former Shockley Semiconductor employees. Fairchild started out small, building germanium transistors, but this invention turned them into a giant virtually overnight. In the late 1950s Raytheon corporation was in development of a long range ballistic missile, later to be known as the Minuteman 1. The high shock and vibration made the missile a very hostile environment for sensitive electronics. A young Fairchild physicist named Jean Hoerni was working on the many reliability problems plaguing semiconductors used in the missile. It was discovered that failures were being caused by contamination inside the metal can packages shorting the junctions. He visualized and developed a process in silicon instead of germanium to solve those problems. In January of 1959 he wrote a patent disclosure and demonstrated a working silicon planar transistor that March. The process involves forming transistor junctions through a series of photographic exposure, chemical etching, and doping techniques on a slab of polished silicon. A layer of silicon dioxide (glass) is then grown over the surface to protect the junctions. The protective layer is etched to form windows in the glass to the buried transistors. Metal connections are then added to complete the circuit. The Fairchild 2N1613 went commercial in 1960. Hoerni's new process made the transistor rugged and long lived enough to meet requirements for the aerospace industry. The planar process was also key to the manufacture of integrated circuits. The silicon planar break-though of the 2N1613 took Fairchild from12 to 12,000 employees and birthed silicon valley. The planar process made the germanium transistor and all other semiconductor manufacturing techniques obsolete within months.Fairchild went on to create the first planar integrated circuits, called micrologic. The first ICs ever mass-produced were three input NOR gate used in the Block 1 Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC). See them and many other rare and beautiful tech collectibles in my store.Thanks for looking!