TRANSISTOR MUSEUM Historic Transistor Photo Gallery
Transistor Size (5/8” X 5/16”) No Date Codes or Packaging Each Unit Hand Serialized on Back or Top	RCA TA153 TYPE Germanium PNP Alloy Junction Low Frequency Amplifier USAGE Experimental/Developmental DATE INTRODUCED 1953 CASE STYLES White Epoxy AVAILABILITY Rare (Limited Production)
HISTORIC NOTES The RCA TA153 transistor was the first junction type developed by RCA. This work was started at the RCA Labs in Princeton NJ in early 1952 and has been described in the classic paper “Germanium PNP Junction Transistors” by L.D. Armstrong, J.I. Pantchechnikoff, C.W. Mueller, and R.R Law, Proceedings of the I.R.E., Vol 40, Nov 1952. Several thousand of this type were built and the main purpose was to supply functioning transistors to RCA circuit engineers for developing devices such as radios. The first production lines were established at the RCA Tube Division at Harrison NJ in 1953. The TA153 was the prototype for the commercialized 2N34, which was introduced by RCA in 1953. The case material is araldite epoxy, which, through time, allows moisture degradation of the transistor junctions - most currently existing units are not functional. The “TA” part of the model number was used by RCA to represent “developmental” transistors which were not yet ready for commercialization but were available for circuit developmental – “TA” stands for “Transistor Amplifier”.
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