Active thermal control for electronics on Mars rovers imposes a serious penalty in weight, volume, power consumption, and reliability. Thus, we propose that thermal control be eliminated for future rovers. From a functional standpoint there is no reason that the electronics could not operate over the entire temperature range of the Martian environment, which can vary from a low of ≈−90°C to a high of ≈+20°C during the Martian night and day. The upper end of this range is well within that for conventional electronics. Although the lower end is considerably below that for which conventional—even high-reliability—electronics is designed or tested, it is well established that electronic devices can operate to such low temperatures. The primary concern is reliability of the overall electronic system, especially in regard to the numerous daily temperature cycles that it would experience over the duration of a mission on Mars. Accordingly, key reliability issues have been identified for elimination of thermal control on future Mars rovers. One of these is attachment of semiconductor die onto substrates and into packages. Die attachment is critical since it forms a mechanical, thermal, and electrical interface between the electronic device and the substrate or package. This paper summarizes our initial investigation of existing information related to this issue, in order to form an opinion whether die attachment techniques exist, or could be developed with reasonable effort, to withstand the Mars thermal environment for a mission duration of approximately one earth year. Our conclusion, from a review of literature and personal contacts, is that die attachment can be made sufficiently reliable to satisfy the requirements of future Mars rovers. Moreover, it appears that there are several possible techniques from which to choose and that the requirements could be met by judicious selection from existing methods using hard solders, soft solders, or organic adhesives. Thus, die attachment does not appear to be a roadblock to eliminating thermal control for rover electronics. We recommend that this be further investigated and verified for the specific hardware and thermal conditions appropriate to Mars rovers.
