European Expert Workshop on Reliability of Electronics & Smart Systems

EuWoRel is an annual two-day workshop with about 30 participants where day one focuses on technical presentations along the three directions of reliability research:

1. Improvement in the comprehensiveness and efficiency of experimental reliability tests and analysis methods for discovering and characterizing the physics of failure
2. Speeding up the reliability assessment by applying virtual techniques based on fully calibrated and validated numerical simulation approaches
3. Prevention of any unexpected failure by the prognostic health management (PHM) strategy using AI & digital twin principles for triggering maintenance on demand

Day two is dedicated to presentations of ongoing projects and brokerage activities for project proposals. In addition to general networking each of the EuWoRel events has a focus topic, to which it has generated effective results by dedicated group discussions:

• In 2013, we started with the discussion of the 'EPoSS White Paper on Smart Systems Reliability', which finally was presented to the European Commission. Since then, reliability has been given good attention in all the European calls on ICT & ECSEL.
• In 2014, we discussed the Roadmap 'Smart Systems for Automated Driving'. Result: More support for research on reliability testing, numerical simulation, and functional safety of electronics also from ERTRAC, the leading EU organization for automotive research coordination.
• In 2015, we brainstormed on the 'Reliability and Functional Safety' chapter of the update to the EPoSS Strategic Research Agenda (SRA), which serves as a basis for the ICT & EGVIa calls of 2017-20.
• In 2016, our focus was set on Prognostic Health Management (PHM) methods. Our metro map like list of priority actions opened the door to funding for PHM research in EU and national schemes.
• In 2017, we worked on the specific action items for four chapters of the European ECS SRA: Systems Integration, Reliability, Transport/Mobility, and Energy. The ECS SRA is now the main reference document for the research on electronics in the EU.
• In 2018, we reviewed the ongoing research projects and provided input for the 2019 calls (EU & nation-al).
• In 2019, we created input to several chapters of the EPoSS-ID document (Reliability, Integration, Mobili-ty etc.), which now goes into the ECS SRIA 2021
• In 2020, we met virtually and became part of the Pan-European Network on Reliability of ECS established with the 100 M€ ECSEL project iRel4.0
• The 2021 EuWoRel was held as a physical event. Results were presented from ECSEL-IA iRel4.0 which has successfully completed its 1st year of research on Intelligent Reliability for electronics and smart systems. The opportunities for reliability within Horizon Europe was also presented and discussed.
• EuWorel 2022 was held 8-9 September at Fraunhofer Forum in Berlin. The smart power electronics project PowerizeD that was initiated at EuWorel 2021 will start in 2023.
• In 2023, we contributed to the CSA Pack4EU and initiated the large project proposal E²PackMan with the aim to bring back electronics packaging production to Europe.
• EuWoRel 2024 channeled the results of topical discussions to EPoSS Task Force on Advanced Packaging for further use with their inputs to the upcoming EU work programs.
• EuWoRel 2025 organised discussions for the finetuning of the concrete project goals in the ChipsJU project E2PACKMAN.