JPH0611583Y2 - Electronic device cooling device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial application] The present invention relates to a cooling device for electronic equipment, and more particularly to a cooling device having improved cooling performance.

[Prior Art] In general, electronic devices are mounted with a large number of printed circuit boards on which heat-generating electronic components are mounted, and a cooling device is required to guarantee the reliability thereof. 2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, cooling devices have been required to have higher cooling performance as electronic devices have become more sophisticated and larger.

As a conventional cooling device, a cooling device for a test head for an IC tester will be described here as an example.

The test head is mainly composed of a sample power source to be applied to a device under test (hereinafter referred to as DUT), a timing generator output, a pattern generator output section, and an input section for taking the device output into the measurement section of the IC tester. Evaluate by directly mounting the DUT. FIG. 10 shows a conventional cooling device for cooling such a test head.

A printed circuit board 91 is radially mounted on the test head 90 for downsizing. A plurality of axial fans 92 are provided to cool the heat-generating electronic components mounted on the radially mounted printed circuit board 91 by the exhaust air. In the center of the test head 90, as shown in the drawing, a cylindrical body 95 having a peephole 93 for a microscope, which is required at the time of wafer check, passes through the mother board 94 and penetrates the test head 90 up and down. The fan 92, which adopts the exhaust cooling method of cooling with the exhaust air, needs to be provided on the back surface side of the mother board 94.
4, a hole for allowing the exhaust air from the fan 92 to pass therethrough, that is, a ventilation opening 96 called a ventilation hole ring is provided in the cylindrical body 95.
It is provided in a ring shape so as to surround the.

Then, the cooling air discharged from the fan 92 flows into the substrate storage chamber 97 of the test head 90 through the opening 96,
After the heat-generating electronic components on the printed circuit board 91 are cooled, the heat-generating electronic components are discharged from the slits provided on the side surfaces.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, the above-described conventional cooling device has the following drawbacks.

Many wire rods connected to the printed circuit board run on the back surface of the motherboard, and the wire rods block the ring-shaped ventilation openings, so that the ventilation resistance is large. Therefore, a sufficient amount of air cannot be sent into the substrate storage chamber.

It is necessary to increase or increase the size of the fan as the number of pins and size of the test head increase.In doing so, the size of the test head becomes larger than necessary and the weight increases, while the connection mechanism for the handler and the prober is increased. This is a large scale and causes an increase in the floor area of the entire test system including these peripheral devices.

In order to make the cooling temperature distribution in the test head uniform, it is necessary to use multiple fans, resulting in a loud noise. If the number of fans is increased, the noise will be further increased.

Since the air taken in the test head is released to the outside as it is, it causes environmental pollution.

In the exhaust cooling system in which a fan is provided below the test head to suck external air from the lower part, introduce it into the inside B, and discharge it to the outside, the cooling efficiency is poor and it is impossible to cope with the increase in capacity of the test head.

As described above, the conventional cooling mechanism cannot effectively cope with the increase in capacity of the test head.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned drawbacks of the related art.

An object of the present invention is to provide a cooling device for an electronic device that can uniformly obtain high cooling efficiency.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a cooling device for electronic equipment having a simple structure.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a cooling device for electronic equipment capable of preventing environmental pollution.

Moreover, the object of the present invention is to
An object of the present invention is to provide a cooling device for an electronic device that can obtain a more uniform cooling temperature distribution.

[Means for Solving the Problem] The present invention is applied to a cooling device that cools an electronic device that is housed in a casing and has a large number of printed circuit boards on which heat-generating electronic components are mounted.

In such a cooling device for electronic equipment, a blower that is provided outside the electronic equipment to introduce and discharge external air into the electronic equipment, and a duct that connects the electronic equipment and the blower to guide the air to the blower, The connecting portion between the duct and the electronic device is provided with a partition plate that divides the portion of the electronic device formed by the connecting portion, which is far from the blower of the electronic device, and the portion that is close to the blower, and controls the amount of air flow to these portions. It is a thing.

In order to simplify the configuration, in particular, when the electronic device includes a main body electrically connected to the main body, and the main body has a blower for cooling the heat-generating components in the main body, the electronic device is It is preferable to share the main body blower as the blower for the main body.

Further, in order to prevent environmental pollution, it is desirable to connect the electronic device to the suction side of the blower.

Furthermore, in order to achieve uniform cooling regardless of the heat generation distribution,
The position of the partition plate is adjustable so that the volume of air separated by the partition plate can be changed, and a temperature sensor that detects the temperature inside the electronic device and a temperature that outputs a signal according to the detected temperature are compared with the set temperature. It is preferable to include a control unit and an actuator that is controlled according to an output signal of the temperature control unit and controls the position of the partition plate.

[Operation] When the duct leading to the blower is connected to the electronic device, a part near the blower and a part far from the blower can be formed in the electronic device depending on the connecting portion. Then, because of the ventilation resistance, a larger amount of air is sucked from the portion closer to the blower, and the air volume in the portion far from the blower becomes smaller than that in the portion close to the blower. As a result, temperature non-uniformity occurs within the electronic device.

Therefore, at least a connecting portion between the duct and the electronic device is provided with a partition plate for partitioning a part far from the blower of the electronic device and a part near the blower, and the part far from the blower and the part near the blower are completely separated. Then, it seems that just two blowers are drawing the air in the electronic device, and as a result, the amount of air flowing through the partitioned duct is controlled regardless of the distance from the blower. If this control is divided into equal parts, the temperature distribution in the electronic device is made uniform.

[Embodiment] An embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a test head of an IC tester will be described below with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 4 shows an IC test system, for example, a logic L
It is mainly composed of an IC tester main body 41 that measures SI and memory functions and electrical characteristics, and a test head 50 that is electrically connected to the IC tester main body 41 to test the DUT. The test head 50 mounted on the carriage 43 and the tester main body 41 are mechanically connected by a flexible duct 64, and the blower 46 housed in the tester main body 41
The inside of the test head 50 is cooled via the duct 64. The blower 46 is a built-in blower 46 for cooling the heat-generating components and the power supply in the tester body 41, and is used as it is for the test head 50.
An absorption cooling method of cooling with intake air is adopted as the cooling method, and the test head 50 is cooled with the air sucked into the blower 46, not the air discharged from the blower 46.

The air taken into the test head 50 to cool the inside thereof, and the air discharged therefrom is guided to the exhaust duct 45 which exits from the top of the tester main body 41 through the duct 64 and the blower 46 and passes through to the ceiling in the room. This prevents the air that has cooled the test head 50 from being scattered into the room and contaminating the room.

The blower may not be shared by the blower 46 of the tester body 41, but a separate blower may be prepared outside the test head 50.

5 and 6 show details of the test head 50.

In FIG. 5, the test head 50 includes a lower cover 51, a central frame body 52, and an upper cover 53, which form a casing.
A stopper plate 54 for electrically connecting the IC tester body and the test head, and a performance board 55 used for wiring a power supply and a signal connection specific to each type of DUT.
Mainly consists of and. A large number of slit-shaped air holes 57 are provided on the entire side surface of the upper cover 53 so that the air outside the test head can be taken into the inside.
The air taken in is discharged from the outlet provided in the lower cover 51. The above-mentioned duct is attached to this outlet.

The hole 56 formed at the center of the performance board 55 is a peep hole for a microscope.

In FIG. 6 in which the upper cover 53 is removed, a large number of printed circuit boards 61 are radially mounted on the mother board 63 of the frame body 52 so as to surround the cylindrical body 62 forming the observation hole 56 for the microscope. The printed circuit board 61 has a heat-generating electronic component such as ECL for measuring the DUT.
High-speed devices with relatively large power consumption such as (emitter coupled logic) are mounted. Motherboard 6
A ring-shaped ventilation opening 65 is formed on the outer periphery of the cylindrical body 62 on the upper side of the upper side of the upper side of FIG. 3, so that the air in the board housing chamber formed in the upper cover housing the printed board 61 is discharged to the duct 64. There is.

The connection portion of the cooling duct 64 with the test head 50 is
From the discharge port 58 provided in the lower cover 51 to the test head 50
A straight duct portion 67 that extends into the lower cover 51 and extends below the tubular body 62; and a duct cylindrical portion 66 that surrounds the tubular body 62 and is attached so that its end communicates with the ventilation opening 65. To be done. At this time, test head 5
The duct connecting portion that goes into the slot 0 is attached by removing the wire rod on the back surface of the motherboard 63. As a result, the substrate storage chamber and the duct 64 are communicated with each other through the ventilation opening 65 without any obstacle, and a sufficient air volume can be secured.

Although the duct connecting portion inside the test head is described as being integrated with the external duct 64, it may be formed separately.

Now, the duct 64 with the blower connected to one end like this
When the other end of is connected to the test head 50, air is taken into the substrate storage chamber 31 from the outside as shown in FIG.
The printed circuit board is cooled and discharged from the ventilation opening 65, passes through the duct cylindrical portion 66, and exits from the duct straight portion 67 to the blower 4
6 is sucked. Here, the temperature of the point B near the ventilation opening 65 of the substrate storage chamber 31 closest to the blower 46 and the blower 4
A near the ventilation opening 65 of the substrate storage chamber 31 farthest from
I measured the temperature of the spot and. As a result, it was found that there was a temperature difference between points A and B, and the distribution of the air volume was different. That is, the air volume at the point A far from the blower 46 is smaller, and the air volume at the point B closer to the blower 46 is larger.
The temperature of the spot was getting higher. It is considered that this is because the blower 46 is provided outside the test head 50 and air is sucked from one side of the test head 50, so that an unbalance of the suctioned air volume occurs.

In order to ensure the reliability of the test head and guarantee a predetermined MTBF (mean failure time), it is desirable that the temperature distribution inside the test head be uniform, and if the degree of non-uniformity is large, there is a problem in reliability. There is.

Therefore, in order to eliminate this non-uniform distribution, various experiments were carried out using a partition plate and a bypass as shown in FIG. As a result, it was found that the method described later is the best.

Provide a resistance plate for forming ventilation resistance in the ventilation opening
(Fig. 7 (a)).

Since the air volume on the B point side is large, a crescent-shaped resistance plate is attached to the B point side of the ventilation opening 65 in order to regulate the air volume, and the ventilation opening width at the point closest to the blower is the smallest and gradually increases as the distance from the blower increases. Change the width of the resistance plate so that the opening width becomes wider.

Provide a bypass (Fig. 7 (b)).

Bypass passages 72 that join the duct straight portion 67 are provided at both boundaries between the point A side and the point B side of the duct cylindrical portion 66,
Try to pull air from three sides.

A separating plate is provided (Fig. 7 (c)).

Air flow 7 flowing in duct straight portion 67 in duct cylindrical portion 66
4, a separation plate 73 that divides the duct cylindrical portion 66 into two in parallel with
Attach and separate the air flow streams.

An L-shaped partition plate is provided (Fig. 7 (d)).

The inside of the duct cylindrical portion 66 is partitioned so as to divide the point A side and the point B side, and the inside of the duct straight portion 67 is also divided into two.
Make sure that the air in the test head is equivalently drawn by two blowers.

The method as described above is the best for uniforming the temperature distribution in the test head, and the other methods are bad. The reason is that, even if the area of the ventilation opening is regulated, the flow rate increases and the air volume does not change.
This is because the passage closest to the blower preferentially draws more air. The reason is the same as above.

Therefore, the structure will be described in more detail with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

The L-shaped partition plate 10 is provided in the connection portion of the duct 64.
One side 11 of the L-shaped partition plate 10 is A inside the duct cylindrical portion 66.
In order to equally divide the point side and the B point side in the axial direction, the point side and the point B side are vertically extended along the outer side surface of the cylindrical body 62 and the inner side surface of the duct cylindrical portion 66. The one side 11 is provided with a notch for allowing the tubular body 62 to escape. The other side 12 of the L-shaped partition plate 10 is horizontally extended along both side surfaces of the duct straight portion 64 so as to equally divide the inside of the duct straight portion 64 in a direction orthogonal to the air flow 73 flowing therein. .

The upper end of one side 11 of the L-shaped partition plate 10 along the tubular body 62 may be stopped at an intermediate portion of the tubular body 62 as shown in the figure, or up to the tip of the tubular body 62, that is, the substrate storage chamber. You can extend it to. The lower end of one side 11 is stopped at the central portion of the duct straight portion 67 in the thickness direction. The other side 12 along the duct straight portion 67 has a duct cylindrical portion 66 of about 100 mm.
Although it is extended so as to enter into the duct straight portion 67 from the above (L = 100 mm in the embodiment), it may be further extended to the blower side.

Now, in the above configuration, when the air in the test head is sucked from the blower 64, the connecting portion of the duct 64,
That is, from the opening 65, which is the discharge port on the test head side, to the part of the linear duct, the discharge paths on the A point side and the B point side are separated, so that it is as if two blowers were used to draw. As a result, the point A side far from the blower 46 receives the same amount of wind as the point B side. As a result, even when the blower 46 is provided outside the test head 50 to cool the test head, the temperature distribution in the test head can be made uniform.

FIG. 8 shows the temperature characteristics and the air volume characteristics of the comparison between this embodiment and the trial example. In the figure, the temperature _{T A} far A side from the blower, the air volume _{V A,} the temperature _T B near the B side from the blower,
The air flow rate is V _B , (A) the vertical axis is T _B / T _A , (B) is V
_A / V _B. It can be seen that the method according to the present embodiment (d) is far superior to the trial examples (a) to (c).

FIG. 9 shows another embodiment of the present invention, which is different from the above embodiment in that the air flow distribution in the test head is not fixedly uniformed but is changed according to the heat generation amount of each printed circuit board. By performing the optimum air flow rate adjustment, the temperature distribution can be made more appropriate and uniform.

First, the partition plate 10 can be adjusted and moved in a horizontal direction or a vertical direction so that the amount of air to be partitioned can be varied.
Alternatively, the position control or the posture control can be freely provided. .. for detecting the temperature inside the test head 50 are provided in the circumferential direction inside the test head 50 so that the temperature inside the test head 50 can be measured finely.

The detected temperature detected by these temperature sensors 91 is
A temperature control unit 92 is provided which compares the preset temperature with a preset temperature and outputs a corresponding signal. This can be composed of a comparator or a microcomputer. An actuator 93 that is controlled according to the output signal of the temperature control unit 92 is provided, and the position or the posture of the partition plate 10 is controlled by the actuator 93, so that the test head can operate even if the heat generation amount of each printed circuit board is different. The temperature distribution within 50 is always uniform. According to this, when designing a printed circuit board, it is not necessary to equalize the heat generation of each board which needs to be prepared, and there is also an advantage that the degree of freedom in designing the test head is improved.

As described above, according to this embodiment, since the duct is directly connected to the substrate storage chamber through the ventilation opening, it is possible to send a sufficient amount of air into the substrate storage chamber. Even if the test head has a large number of pins or a large size, it can be effectively dealt with by changing the blower capacity outside the test head, so that the test head does not become larger than necessary and the weight does not increase. It is possible to suppress an increase in floor area of the entire system.

Further, in order to make the cooling temperature distribution in the test head uniform, it is not necessary to use a large number of fans, and noise can be reduced. Further, since the air taken into the test head is introduced into the main body and discharged from the main body to the duct leading to the ceiling, environmental pollution is not brought about. Further, since the absorption cooling method by the blower is adopted, the cooling efficiency is higher than that of the discharge cooling method, and it is possible to cope with the increase in capacity of the test head.

In the above embodiment, the inside of the duct is divided into two by the L-shaped partition plate, but the present invention is not limited to this, and it may be divided into three or more. In this case, the plurality of L-shaped partition plates may be displaced from each other along the blower suction direction and may be provided in multiple stages along the axial direction of the tubular body.

Further, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the case where the electronic device is a test head for an IC tester has been described, but the electronic device is not limited to the test head. The present invention can be applied to any electronic device as long as it is a device that draws a fluid by a blower and cools it, and the air flow distribution in the device becomes non-uniform.

[Effect of the Invention] As described above, the present invention has the following effects.

(1) According to the electronic device cooling device of claim 1, since the cooling air is directly sucked by the blower through the duct connected to the electronic device, a sufficient air volume is ensured and the partition plate distributes the air volume. Can be made uniform, so that a uniform cooling temperature distribution can be obtained. Further, since the blower is provided outside the electronic device, the electronic device can be made smaller and lighter. Further, since it is not necessary to install a large number of fans inside the electronic device, noise can be reduced as much as possible.

(2) According to the electronic device cooling device of the second aspect, since the blower of the main body is shared, the configuration is simplified.

(3) According to the electronic device cooling device of the third aspect, since the electronic device is connected to the suction port of the blower, environmental pollution can be effectively prevented.

(4) According to the electronic device cooling device of claim 4, since the partition plate is linked with the temperature control mechanism, even if the heat generation distribution in the device is non-uniform, a more uniform cooling temperature distribution can be obtained. can get.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention applied to a test head of an IC tester, FIG. 2 is a perspective view of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram on which the embodiment of the present invention is based. 4 is an overall configuration diagram of an IC test system equipped with the cooling device of this embodiment, FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a test head, FIG. 6 is a perspective view of the test head without an upper cover, and FIG. Is a conceptual diagram of the present embodiment and the trial example, FIG. 8 is a characteristic diagram comparing the present embodiment and the trial example, (A) is a temperature characteristic diagram, (B) is an air volume characteristic diagram, and FIG. 9 is The block diagram which shows the other Example of this invention,
FIG. 10 is a schematic explanatory view showing a cooling device for a test head according to a conventional example. 10 ... L-shaped partition plate, 31 ... Substrate storage chamber, 46 ... Blower, 62 ... Cylindrical body, 64 ... Duct, 65 ... Ventilation opening, 66
... duct cylindrical portion, 67 ... duct straight portion, 73 ... air flow.

Claims (4)

[Scope of utility model registration request] 1. A cooling device for cooling an electronic device, which is housed in a casing and has a large number of printed circuit boards on which heat-generating electronic components are mounted, for cooling the electronic device. The cooling device is provided outside the electronic device and external air is introduced into the electronic device and discharged. And a duct that connects the electronic device and the blower to guide the air to the blower, and a portion farther from the blower in the electronic device formed by the connection part and the blower at the connecting portion between the duct and the electronic device. And a partition plate for controlling the amount of airflow flowing through these parts. 2. A blower for a main body as a blower for the electronic device, wherein the electronic device includes a main body electrically connected to the main body, and the main body has a blower for cooling heat-generating components in the main body. The cooling device for electronic equipment according to claim 1, wherein the cooling device is shared. 3. The cooling device for an electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the electronic device is connected to a suction side of a blower. 4. A temperature sensor for detecting the temperature inside the electronic device, and a signal corresponding to the temperature sensor for detecting the temperature inside the electronic device, the position of the partition plate being adjustable so that the volume of air partitioned by the partition plate can be changed. 4. The electronic device according to claim 1, further comprising: a temperature control unit that outputs a temperature control signal, and an actuator that is controlled according to an output signal of the temperature control unit to control a position of the partition plate. Equipment cooling device.