The P601 I isn't the world's best transistor, and it wasn't even in 1973 when it was manufactured.
Hign Tech on Clay Feet |
A Lithuanian friend of mine gave me a fantastic
freak of a semiconductor. It came straight from the soviet semiconductor forges. Its operating specifications are
strange, to say the least. It has a maximum operating temperature of 60 degrees Celsius, that would indicate
it's a germanium transistor, but its UBEmax of 0.7 volts shows it's all about silicon.
The data sheet isn't very
informative either. The semiconductor material isn't specified, nor is the manufacturer, and neither do we know
if it's a PNP or an NPN device. Perhaps it was a state secret? An expert I consulted thought that perhaps it was
made out of selenium! (Stalinium?) I presume it is germanium, but with very low doping levels, which results in
the high base bias voltage and the enormous saturation voltage. The UCEsat is a fantastic 2 volts
at an IC of 0.5 A, resulting in a whole watt of power dissipation at saturation. Maximum power
dissipation mounted on cooler is a full 3 watts.
A typical western transistor in TO-3 can from the same time, which is what is closest to this Soviet can, should dissipate at least 100 watts, with an UCEsat of no more than 0.1 volt. This one manages a full 25 volts, but not faster than 1 MHz, because then the amplification is down to 2. Minimum operating temperature is a hefty -50 degrees Celsius, rather unusual, until one realises that the Red Army must be able to work in Siberia too. Although not for very long...
Don't sit around |
Maximum storage time is 6 years (and you
are specially instructed to check the manufacturing date and start counting from then), which indicates they either
didn't know how to passivate the chip, or had some problems with the hermetic sealing of the package. It is not
guaranteed to operate for more than 10,000 hours (1.1 year), and when the transistor was taken off line after the
10,000 hours you were requested to send back the warranty slip and tell how things worked. As this article was
written in 1999, my device from 1973 would be broken already. Russian transistor salesmen had to be fast.
If you're not completely satisfied... |
At the end is the “Complaints” section, which you can fill out if the transistor breaks, so you can send it back and get a new one; a detail you definitely won't find on any western data sheet. Either they were not at all sure if the design would work, or it was just so bad they had to implement some sort of routine for complaints. Perhaps the Red Army would go bonkers otherwise.
Readable, with difficulty |
The first page of the data
sheet has been image enhanced for you to be able to read it, but to let you experience the true junkiness, the
crappy printing quality and the bad paper of a real Soviet data sheet, the second page has been left with its original
colours. Note that the whole data sheet is typeset in Cyrillic type, whereas the formulae are set with roman type!
My, my, Sovietskij setskij didn't work for longer than 6 years.
| Parameter |
Unit |
Value |
| Type |
P601 I |
|
| Manufacturer |
Doesn't say |
|
| Maximum collector-emitter voltage |
V |
20 |
| Maximum power dissipation |
W |
3 |
| Maximum collector current |
A |
1.5 |
| Saturation voltage (@ IC= 0.5A) |
V |
2 |
| Amplification factor |
20 - 250 |
|
| Operating temperature range |
°C |
-50...+60 |
| Maximum operating time |
hrs |
10 000 |
| Maximum storage time |
yrs |
6 |
Wow!
