System for controlling temperature of electronic device under test and apparatus for testing electronic device under test

Abstract

An electronic test system may use a gaseous heat transfer medium to cool the system's components and the device under test within the system. This heat transfer medium may be clean, dry air or other gaseous compounds.

Claims

1. A system for cooling an electronic device, comprising: A cooling system including a cooling circuit and a heat exchange subsystem; a gaseous heat transfer circuit in thermal contact with the heat exchange subsystem, wherein the gaseous heat transfer circuit includes a pressurized gaseous heat transfer medium; and one or more heat exchangers, or the like, connected to the gaseous heat transfer circuit and installed adjacent to an electronic device.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the gaseous heat transfer medium is clean, dry air.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the gaseous heat transfer medium is nitrogen, helium, neon or argon.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a pump configured to move the gaseous heat transfer medium within the gaseous heat transfer loop.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the cooling system includes one or more condensing units.

6. The system as described in claim 1, wherein the electronic devices are computer servers.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the one or more heat exchangers are in direct thermal contact with the computer servers.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the computer servers include CPUs and / or GPUs and the one or more heat exchangers are in direct thermal contact with the CPUs and / or GPUs.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the computer servers are mounted in a mounting rack and the one or more heat exchangers are configured to cool the computer servers in the mounting rack.

10. A cooling system comprising: Electrical device testing system; A hot head thermally coupled to the electrical device testing system, wherein the hot head includes: a cooling system; A cooling circuit includes a pressurized gaseous heat transfer medium; a cooling block configured to transfer heat from an electrical device to the gaseous heat transfer medium; a heating block configured to transfer heat to the heating head; and a heat exchanger subsystem configured to transfer heat from the cooling circuit to the cooling system.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the pressure in the cooling circuit is between 2 bar and 30 bar.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the gaseous heat transfer medium is clean, dry air.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the gaseous heat transfer medium is nitrogen, helium, neon or argon.

14. The system of claim 10, further comprising a pump configured to move the gaseous heat transfer medium within the cooling circuit.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the electrical device is a ball grid array (BGA), chip-scale package (CSP), quad flat package (QFP), quad flat leadless (QFN), thin small outline package (TSOP), small outline integrated circuit (SOIC), plastic leaded wafer carrier (PLCC), ceramic quad flat package (CERQUAD), or pin grid array (PGA) type device.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the cooling system is a liquid nitrogen cooling system.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the cooling system includes one or more condensing units.

18. The system of claim 10, further comprising a controller programmed to read the temperature of the electrical device.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the controller is configured to activate the heating block when the temperature of the electrical device is below a preset threshold.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the controller is configured to deactivate the heating block if the temperature of the electrical device exceeds a preset threshold.

21. The system of claim 10, wherein the heat head includes an internal channel configured to accommodate the pressurized gaseous heat transfer medium.

22. The system of claim 10, wherein the cooling block includes an automatic flow control valve configured to modulate the flow rate of the gaseous heat transfer medium passing through the cooling block.

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