Replacement transistors BC141 and BC161

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You can not replace both with the same transistor .

BC141 is NPN.......... near equivalent BD139
BC161 is PNP.......... near equivalent BD140

Electrically they look like near equivalents but of course the cases are totally different BCs....TO39 BDs....TO220

Also the BCs could have been bought as a matched pair ( dependent on circuit cofiguration ).
 
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Sakis, he is right. The bc639 is a 1A, max 1.5A. Its the same chip put into a TO126 package for higher dissapation. I got this info many years back straight from philips when I wanted info regarding the datasheets. To get all relevant data one can cunsult bc639 datasheets. Some parameters deteriorate a little because of higher the parasitic capacitance in the TO126 but if you look closely the datasheets are identical except for the power ratings. Looking at the modern version of bc639 from onsemi it seems they kept the manufacturing way to get bd139.
 
homemodder , you told me that :)

Datasheet present them like high current transistors with 1A continuous current look the picture.
Even numeration and VCEmax is the same on BC635/637/639 and BD135/137/139.

Regards!
 

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Philips BD139s were BC639s packaged as TO-126. Max 1 A for both.

Generic BD139s are not, they're an entirely different die. 1.5 A max, Cjc/Cje about twice as large.

I dont think thats the case maybe with components manufactured in china as replacements. The ones by reputable manufacturers like onsemi, fairchild etc seem to be using the same setup.

Ill see if I can get answer to this from Onsemi or Fairchild, will be interesting.
 
All I know is that the Philips BC639 / BCX56 / BCP56 (/ BD139, discontinued) differ quite a bit from your average Fairchild or STMicro BD139.

Fairchild BD139s are modeled with Cje = 293p, Cjc = 49p, tf = 585p.
Philips BCP56-16s are modeled with Cje = 144p, Cjc = 21p, tf = 780p.
There's no way in hell these are even close to the same die.

The only BC639 model I could find (aside from an old Siemens BC637) was for a Zetex: Cje = 108p, Cjc = 16p, tf = 0.8n.
 
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I hope youre not relying on spice models for the figures, they are hopeless some times but in the case of the fairchild could be right, 49pf at 0 volt will equate to about 12 to 14pf at - 10v VCE. Thats what I reckon for the part. BC639 is around 6p 7p at -10 vce.
Zetex model seems correct too 16p at 0 gets you about 6pf -8pf at -10vce.

Theres one factor youre forgetting, when a different package is used for the transistor parasitic capacitances increase, this will influence other parameters like ft too.There exists 2 spice parameter for this in IC design but in the case of discretes these arent used for simplicity.
 
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