JAN CRP 2N697 NPN Silicon Switching Transistor, Gold Leads, Lot 6633, NOS

Marked JAN CRP 2N697 with 6633 alongside it. That last group is lot and date coding, and read the usual way it points at the thirty third week of 1966, which puts this device within a decade of the 2N697 first being made. The CRP is the manufacturer code within the JAN system.

The 2N697 has a better claim to historical significance than most parts in this drawer. It came out of Fairchild Semiconductor at the end of the 1950s and was among the first silicon transistors made in what became Silicon Valley, using the planar process that changed how semiconductors were built. RCA documentation of the period describes the type for high speed switching in military and industrial data processing equipment, rating it to 60 volts collector to base, half an amp of collector current and two watts case mounted.

Physically it is what a high reliability part of the era should look like: a hermetic can and long gold plated leads, still bright. One is on the shelf. Sold untested, because the JAN marking describes the screening it passed in 1966 and says nothing about what it measures now, and we would rather meter the piece for you on request than imply a guarantee that a stamp cannot give.