Electronic Corrosion Sensor (ECS) Chip

Turning hidden failures into predictable events

Corrosion inside electronics doesn’t give warning signs in the traditional sense. Rather it appears as sudden malfunction or performance degradation. By the time it’s detected, the cost has already been compounded: unplanned downtime, maintenance calls, or component replacements. 

Building on the ELMAC project, the ECS-Chip aims to address this problem and go before it. This device is the first of its kind: a miniaturized, intelligent corrosion sensor specifically designed for electronics exposed to harsh environmental conditions. It doesn’t just detect corrosion; it predicts the risk of it happening. This project brings together a collaborative team: PAJ Group, who are leading the hardware design, manufacturing and industrialization; DTU, focusing on R&D, testing, qualification, calibration, and develop a AI machine learning (ML) model to interpret sensor data; and Antire (formerly Minds and Co.), ensuring the stable and secure dataflow between the sensor and the AI/ML model, and the end-users. 

What sets the ECS-Chip apart is that it goes further than the traditional sensors that only measure ambient conditions like temperature or humidity. It captures electrochemical signals that directly reflect the processes that lead to corrosion. This allows for more accurate, context-sensitive diagnostics that tie environmental exposure to real degradation risks. 

Engineering for harsh realities

The technical ambition is to build a compact, modular, and scalable sensor that can be installed directly into high-risk zones inside power electronics, whether in a wind turbine converter box, an EV inverter, or a solar combiner. The design process is grounded in trade-offs: how to balance high sensitivity with long-term stability, miniaturization and robustness, modularity and cost. 

To support this, simulation models, climate data analytics, and experimental validation are being used. Furthermore, the sensor will be tested also with industrial partners who represent different use environments and technical demands. Their participation ensures the ECS-Chip is tested across a spectrum of operational realities. 

A market gap with growing visibility

While corrosion has long been acknowledged as a reliability challenge, its economic and environmental impact has often been difficult to quantify until failures occur. What we’ve heard consistently from our partners and customers is this: they know corrosion is a problem, but they lack the tools to predict when or where it will occur, leaving them in reactive maintenance loops and facing avoidable downtime. 

This is where ECS-Chip aims to create real market value. By providing predictive maintenance intelligence, it helps extend product lifespans, reduce field service costs, and minimize unnecessary replacements. In the broader context, it allows industries to operate with more precision and fewer resources – an important step for any company contributing to decarbonization and sustainable systems. 

Its relevance spans sectors from wind and solar to mobility and power electronics, where climate-driven degradation is a growing concern. Especially since the global corrosion monitoring market is expected to grow by 10.9% until 2030, reaching 881 million USD market size.

From research to repeatable engineering solutions

For Antire, the ECS-Chip project is also a platform for exploration. We’re not just thinking about this specific solution, but also about how its underlying principles such as high-resolution environmental sensing, real-time risk modelling, and system-level integration can apply to other projects. This is part of our broader approach to innovation: don’t reinvent the wheel, just make it smarter. 

Our role involves ensuring that the insights generated from the sensor are accessible and actionable. That includes shaping how predictive models are deployed in practice, supporting data interpretation, and creating user feedback loops. We’re also looking at how such sensing platforms can plug into existing asset management systems without adding unnecessary complexity. 

Supporting the green transition really means enabling smarter decisions through better data and solving complex problems before they become critical. The ECS-Chip is one of many steps on a journey that has the potential to change how we think about reliability in a climate-challenged world. Whether you’re in wind, solar, or any climate-exposed electronics industry, predictive corrosion monitoring could shift your maintenance from reactive to proactive and turn one of the most unpredictable failure modes into one of the most manageable.