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Biograhic Note
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Archer Mohr worked for RCA for
32 yrs, from 1949 to 1981. He held various positions during this time
including design engineering and engineering leader at Harrison and
Somerville, production and manufacturing manager at the newly opened
semiconductor plant at Mountaintop Pa, and plant manager at the RCA
Semiconductor plant in Liege Belgium in the early 1970’s. Arch Mohr’s work
spans three decades of semiconductor developments and his Oral History,
recorded in Jan 2001, provides excellent insight into the rapid
developemnts during that time.
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This photo shows a close-up of the
2N72 point contact transistor from 1953/54. According to Mr. Mohr, “The
major work on the point contact transistor was the result of a Signal Corps
Industrial Preparedness Contract. From this came the 2N72. The object of
the contract was to build a manufacturing capacity for 20K (?) units/mo.
& demonstrate the production capability by a production run of 2K. To
the best of my knowledge, no further work was done on point contact
transistors at RCA after this initial run of 2000 units”. Dimensions of
the metal cased unit are 5/16” X 6/16”.
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2N72 PhotoGallery Information
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Oral History – Arch Mohr
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Shortly
after I joined the receiving tube design section in Harrison, N.J. in late
1951, I was assigned product design work on point contact Transistors,
continuing the advanced development work of Bob Slade. I made
developmental samples for customer sampling and spent considerable time in
testing samples and developing specifications. In 1952 or '53, RCA
received a Signal Corps Industrial Preparedness Contract for a point
contact transistor. This resulted in the development of the 2N72. After
the required production run of 2000 (if I recall correctly), no more 2N72's
were made.
After
completion of the Sig. Corps Contract, I worked on the development of
various germanium alloy transistors--including the type mentioned by
Charley Mueller in his Oral History. It was during this time that RCA established
the Semiconductor Division and built the Somerville N.J. plant. In the mid
1950s, RCA received another Sig. Corps Industrial Preparedness Contract to
develop 5 different power transistors--a 1 watt npn ge. transistor, a 1
watt pnp ge. trans. and 3 silicon power transistors (1 watt, 5 watt, and 10
watt if I remember correctly). I was named the engineering leader on the
contract. Germanium alloying processes were well established by this time
so that most of the effort involved package design ( a small TO-3 package
resulted) and establishing the final specifications. These 2 ge. alloy
transistors became the 2N1183 & 2N1184.
Go To Mohr Oral History, Page 2
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