Its hard to say how a device would work at lower temperature than specified and its not wise to do it either. I am sure the company can test it at -40 deg and send you the data if you contact them.
I'm going to be doing a VME card that has to work at -40. We considered adding one pcb layer that was just a serpentine trace, driven by a switcher, LM45 for feedback, to warm the whole board.
Diodes and bipolar transistors cave in at around 20K; they call it "carrier freeze-out" or something. The regular 2.5 mV/K diode slope has a sharp knee at around 20K. Diodes are used as cryo temperature sensors down below 2K. As I recall (from some work with Jlab) at 2.5K a small diode has a few volts drop at 10 uA and looks pretty much resistive.
The limitation is packaging. Plastic packages will often crack adjacent to the lead frame, and are also prone to pulling off wirebonds since there is only a silastic coating between them and the plastic.
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
CCDs develop very bad streaks along the transfer direction at low temperatures (some as high as -50 C, others as low as -100 C), due to traps becoming unpopulated. So different devices show different sensitivities to freeze-out. People needing to work at nitrogen temperature usually stick to majority-carrier devices such as MOSFETs.
Sure, but if the device has to run at high temperatures too it may not be quite so simple. Also, low ambient temperature may mean outdoor use, which may mean battery power, which may mean that using power for heating is out.
Anno
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No, just that the OP hasn't given enough details for an unambiguous recommendation.
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I'd probably use a thermistor + transistor or the LTP in a CA3046 thing as a temp comparator to turn the heat on and off.This would save power in hot places I've never had to do a low or wide temp design, and this was just comment someone pointed out in another NG discussion
Bipolar stuff has a fermi surface in the impulse space of the semiconductor lattice. This fermi surface vanishes toward lower temperatures. When this fermi surface has vanished to significant degrees I don't know, guess far lower,
-100DegC perhaps. FETs do work downto basically zero. The next hurdle is the bonding. The bonding wire, usually gold on silicon doesn't necessarily stick to zero. The different thermal expansion coefficients of silicon and gold let it disconnect. Where this happens I don't know either. Then there may be different thermal expansion coefficient between carrier and substrate, making the substrate come loose.
** Seriously - all you need is to attach a 0.5 watt, low value resistor to the package, feed it some DC and use the heat energy to keep the IC at a nice temp.
Bound to be cheaper than forking out for "mil spec" devices.
** Sure - when the spec arrives the engineuwrs will play.
** Or inside a fridge, or near the he Arctic.
** Or a "phantom" powered masthead amp/processor on a TV antenna in Canada.
** Have you considered that the earth may be flat as well ??
I tested a bunch of TO247 power fets hot. At around 300 C, they spontaneously turned on and quit acting like fets. They were OK when they cooled off. It took 350 or so to permamently whack them.
Plastic packages at high temperatures gradually degrade the silicon the plastic is in contact with.
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
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