The IIRW originated from the Wafer Level Reliability Workshop, which was initiated in 1982 through the efforts of O. D. "Bud" Trapp, of Technology Associates, and the financial support of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to foster the approach of introducing reliability characterizations at the wafer level. Also involved were The Stanford University Integrated Circuits Laboratory and the University of California, Berkley, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. Financial support by DARPA continued for the first eight years of the workshop. Bud Trapp was able to continue the operation of the workshop only until early 1992 when he asked Harry Schafft (then the new Chair of the IRPS Board of Directors) to assume responsibility for the workshop. With fellow IRPS Board member Pat Kennedy to lead the arrangements and operation of the workshop, a Technical Advisory Committee to represent the interests of the reliability community, and the oversight of IRPS, the workshop was transformed, within two years, into a self-sustaining technical meeting with IEEE sponsorship. In 1993, the name of the workshop was changed to the Integrated Reliability Workshop to reflect the importance of integrating the approach of building-in reliability in the design, processing, and manufacture of semiconductor products.

General Chair &  Technical Program Chair