Industries That Rely on Temperature Chambers for Product Testing

Electronics

Temperature chambers play a pivotal role in the electronics industry, where they are specifically engineered to test integrated circuits (ICs), circuit boards (PCBs), semiconductors, transducers, power supplies, and drives for resistance to temperature extremes, humidity, thermal shock, and voltage fluctuations. These advanced environmental test systems are designed to replicate a wide range of atmospheric and operational environments to thoroughly assess product longevity, operational stability, and performance reliability under stress.

Given the fast-paced and highly competitive nature of the electronics sector, there is a constant need for rapid development cycles and product qualification. Using temperature chambers, engineers are able to generate immediate data on durability, lifespan, failure modes, and design limitations—crucial for identifying weaknesses and ensuring a product’s reliability and market viability. These applications are especially vital for consumer electronics, industrial controls, computing hardware, and telecommunications equipment.

Medical

The medical device industry falls under strict regulatory control to safeguard public health and meet demanding international standards for patient safety and product quality. National and local authorities, as well as global agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), detail protocols for the rigorous environmental testing of medical devices and packaging, addressing concerns including chemical stability, sterility, transportation, and shelf life.

Compliance standards for medical equipment—such as IEC 60601 or ISO 13485—extend to the selection and calibration of testing chambers used for product validation. This includes validating a product's resilience to extreme heat, cold, and humidity, as well as ingress protection against contaminants and micro-organisms, and the integrity of tamper-evident or sterile packaging. Shelf-life studies are often performed in temperature and humidity chambers to establish expiration dates and recommended storage conditions. Critical medical equipment tested includes respiratory devices (like ventilators and respirators), diagnostic tools, implantables, and emergency care devices which must demonstrate consistent performance under varied environments.

Military

Military and defense sectors require the most demanding levels of environmental qualification for their products, components, and integrated systems. The primary goal of temperature and climatic chamber testing is to evaluate equipment performance and reliability under the most severe and unpredictable conditions imaginable—ranging from arctic cold to desert heat, exposure to salt spray, sand, dust, shock, and vibration.

Manufacturers that supply the military must comply with MIL-STD (military standard) specifications for the qualification of aerospace, automotive, and communications equipment. These standards contain detailed, sector-specific guidelines on environmental simulation, accelerated aging, and the temperature extremes that equipment must survive to be classified as mission-ready and field-deployable. Typical applications include testing of avionics, tactical radios, munitions, navigation devices, and ruggedized computers.

• Outstanding temperature distribution creates uniform stress.
  The temperature distribution performance is outstanding even during temperature variation, providing uniform and highly repeatable stress.
  The optimum air flow and air velocity distribution are calculated by the simulation, minimizing the differences in stress caused by differences in specimen placement positions in the test space.

  
  

• New function controls test sample temperature variation rate.
  Features a high-speed controller for specimen temperature control. This specimen temperature control is achieved by a variety of new technologies—the refrigeration capacity has been increased, the air-conditioning technology minimizes the temperature difference between the specimen and air, and uniform air velocity distribution minimizes the test sample temperature distribution.

  
  

• Complies with JEDEC standard (JESD22-A104F).
  The Rapid-rate Thermal Cycle Chamber, that enables semiconductor package evaluations and solder junction evaluations in compliance with the JESD22-A104F standard, enables test sample temperature control at a rate of 15℃/minute (between -40 and +125°C).
• Supports temperature control of test samples and air.
  Uses two control methods, enabling thermal cycling tests with specimen temperature control of 15℃/minute, and air temperature control. Supports many different applications, ranging from standards compliance testing to screening.