TRANSISTOR MUSEUM™ Historic Transistor Photo Gallery
Transistor Size (1/4”OD) No Date Code   TI Cardboard “Match Cover” Style Packaging	TEXAS INSTRUMENTS TIXM10 TYPE Germanium PNP Epitaxial Planar USAGE High Frequency Radio DATE INTRODUCED Mid 1960s CASE STYLES Plastic Compound AVAILABILITY Rare (Low Volume Production)
HISTORIC NOTES By the mid 1960s, Texas Instruments had become a dominant semiconductor company and was developing world class products of all major types, including silicon transistors and integrated circuits.  Germanium devices were still viable in a few applications, primarily high frequency and low cost.  TI, along with most other major transistor manufacturers, offered germanium transistors which achieved excellent high frequency performance due to very thin base regions made possible with diffusion and epitaxial manufacturing processes. Inexpensive plastic packaging was becoming available, which allowed for very low cost final products.  The TIXM10 was one of a series of preproduction types which offered exceptional high frequency performance (up to 900MHz) at very low cost (.92 ea in the March 1967 TI OEM Price List).  THE TIXM label was a proprietary TI labeling style, with “X” = Preliminary Device without extensive reliability data, and the “M” = Mesa or Planar type.  No case markings were typically used on these preliminary devices, except paint dot color code identifiers.  In this case the brown and black dots represent a “10” color code (TIXM”10”).  It is likely that TI transitioned this type to a standard “2N” number after the preliminary performance had been determined to be adequate for high volume production.
Copyright © 2006 by Jack Ward. All Rights Reserved. http://www.transistormuseum.com