A nanocomponent is a collection of atoms arranged to a specific design in order to achieve a desired function with an acceptable performance and reliability. The type of atoms, the manner in which they are arranged within the nanocomponent, and their interrelationship have a direct effect on the nanocomponent's reliability (survival) function. In this paper we propose models based on the notion of a copula that are used to describe the relationship between the atoms of a nanocomponent. Having defined these models, we go on to construct a ‘nanocomponent’ model in order to obtain the reliability function of a nanocomponent.