if I recall correctly, for TTL :
military down to -70⁰C,
civil down to -50⁰C
this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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Sounds about right ... -some- of the older ICs are pretty rugged. OTOH, things I wonder about on the below-freezing side (colder things shrink) ... include ROMs? Larger capacitors? Modern high-density RAM? FPGA? And then there's water condensation (rust?) water freezing? (might even damage traces on PC boards)... (Wonder if there's an archive of chip datesheets online?)
All specification for every components should be published (and available online) from every good manufacturers.
It's more like, chips are tuned to operate in the same environment as we do.
Chips usually work better under cold conditions but may need higher voltages to compensate. That's why extreme overclockers use liquid nitrogen. I had a phone I had to overvolt during winter for it to not crash when it goes too idle.
Heat affects conductivity and leakage currents especially in tiny circuits. More heat more conductivity, that's why chips that run hot are sometimes susceptible to thermal runaway: they get so hot they conduct more which produces more heat until it fries. That's also why chips being cooled better tend to reduce power consumption, or crash when they get too hot. Similarly, if they're too cold, the given voltage may no longer be enough for it to switch fast enough and signals to make it all the way in time.
You can go really pretty cold if you give it extra juice. Just also have to account that the chip will produce a bit more heat, so depending on the cooling solution, the temperature differential between off and full power can be pretty big which would affect the ideal input voltages. It could need much more to start up but quickly require less as it heats up so it doesn't immediately overheat. But with active temperature and performance monitoring like modern CPUs do, we could in theory expand the range a fair bit. Sometimes it's easier to throw a heater at it.
Construction materials can also affect that, as metals shrink and expand in the cold and heat. That could cause the tiny wires to break especially if there's big heat cycling.
The problem is atmosphere and the water vapor in it. Drop the temp too much and the water condenses out of the air on to the electronics. That can cause ice which causes extreme mechanical stress as it form and expands. Also you can get high thermal gradient across components. All of this causes mechanical stress and things crack.
Really the limits are more about packaging / jointing material science rather that the electronics. For the electronics themselves, the limit is absolute zero when the electrons stop moving.
It's also about mineral deposition from the contents of the water vapor particles. Or even from condensation collecting and moving around any trace minerals or other garbage on the item that wasn't previous an issue because of its location.