30) MESA Type Transistor Performed well also on Silicon

 
Photo: Chip pattern of silicon mesa type transistor "2SC30" produced by NEC

In the1960s, all the major Japanese semiconductor manufacturers rushed to develop silicon semiconductor devices, and it was on February 23 when NEC succeeded in the development of silicon mesa type transistor. The first prototype of germanium mesa type transistor was developed on February 19, 1960, only four days before silicon mesa type transistor, showing that NEC continued the development of the silicon and germanium mesa type transistor in parallel.

Toshio Kurosawa who was one of the leaders of semiconductor device development at NEC (later, he became a board director of NEC Microcomputers, and others), wrote in his book titled "Taking up the New Work of Silicon" (Not for sale), "Thanks to a lot of hard work, we obtained the characteristics far better than expected. The cut-off frequency was 250MHz in silicon and 700MHz in germanium, which we could never realize with alloy type transistors. All the people involved in this development toasted to celebrate the memorable day and to share the joy of the success."

The first prototype of the silicon mesa type transistor was named "V1030" as the development code, and after repeated improvement trials, the first product, was registered as "2SC30".
He confessed in the above mentioned book, "But the initial production plan was like 20 pieces in May, 200 pieces in June, 1,000 pieces in September, 2,000 pieces in October, and so on, in the quantities which we could hardly call mass production level. The initial production started using the part of equipment in the laboratory." For reference, the production level of alloy transistors by the major semiconductor manufacturers at that time was about six million pieces per month.
Photo: Chip pattern of silicon mesa type transistor "2SC30" produced by NEC
(By courtesy of Toshio Kurosawa)

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