The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) continued the funding of the reliability research project at UCR for developing new physics-based compact electromigration (EM) reliability models and assessment techniques for VLSI interconnects. The project is part of the Integrity and Reliability of Integrated circuitS (IRIS) Program Phase III in DARPA. Dr. Tan’s team will focus on developing physics based models and analysis techniques for the back end of the line (BEOL) reliability effects, especially the electromigration effects for copper interconnects in VLSI chips.  Dr. Tan's team developed more accurate three-phase EM models, which can be valid over wide range of stress conditions and proposed new  acceleration techniques for fast EM failure and detection techniques.