External PCB temperature regulation during a bed-of-nails testing method based on environment and near-processor temperature measurements

This paper proposes a system for temperature regulation during nail testing of printed circuit boards (PCB) processors. The system measures temperatures of the environment in the vicinity of the PCB processor and signals whether the PCB should be powered or not. The decision is made using a dynamic temperature threshold estimator, where the threshold is dependent on the environment temperature and the temperature near the tested PCB processor. Moreover, an example of such a system is described, together with a physical simulation system of the testing environment. The performance of the system is shown, while the obtained results are promising.