Rampage_Rick
Senior Member
- Location
- British Columbia, Canada
I've handled a couple thousand sticks of ram and I've never seen or heard of thermal shock causing chips to crack. That's not to say that it's absolutely impossible...
As most memory chips are surface-mount, they're likely reflow-soldered to the PCBs. There are temperature constraints during this process to avoid damage.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflow_soldering
The ramp?up rate is usually somewhere between 1.0 ?C and 3.0 ?C per second, often falling between 2.0 ?C and 3.0 ?C (4 ?F to 5 ?F) per second. If the rate exceeds the maximum slope, potential damage to components from thermal shock or cracking can occur.