Not surprising for a totally solid state device (and no non sealed electromechancial parts)..
The sealing required at the IC module level and the outer glass layer at the chip level to avoid gaseous contamination that will kill a chip in short order make a ride in a washing machine seem like a cake walk..
As long as you get the water out of the physical housing/surface mount board as you did with the drier..
Amazing what silicon can withstand.. I recall a quality procedure in the production process for memory chips taking them up to 100 deg C for a period before final screening.
We had a walk-in environmental test chamber runaway condition that developed over a long weekend that took a large system up to over 180 degrees F.
That was high enough temperature to evaporate out the lubricants out of things like blower motor sleeve bearings, switches, buttons, casters to where they were seized or sticking... and plastic switch buttons beginning to go soft (melt) but not a single silicon failure.
There's a lot of discussion on this subject going on right now on an engineering forum I read.. regarding electrical equipment in the New York Subway system that was submerged in salt water courtesy of Sandy.. Better to replace but long lead times and need to get the system back up and running is critical..
There are firms that specialize in "refurbishing" critical, expensive, long lead time equipment in a timely manner. This involves tear down of the equipment and washing circuit boards in de-ionized water, and replacing all non sealed parts e.g. relays, circuit breakers, etc.
Some electrical equipment manufacturers publish procedures or have processes at their plants to quickly rebuild flooded commercial high value, long lead time electrical equipment.
Commercial, military, automotive, and better quality electronics typically use "conformal coatings" to protect entire circuit boards (using all sealed components of course).. Good definition and read here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_coating Navy Electronics Technicans (ETs) will be quite familiar with this if you worked on equipment with repairable circuit boards...
