In this paper, a numerical experimental approach for measurement of the effective Young's modulus and its size effect in homogeneous thin films and cantilevers is demonstrated. Cu thin films were used as a case study. The experiment consists in measuring the pull-in instability voltage of electro-static actuated Si nanocantilevers and bilayer Cu/Si nanocantilevers. An electro-mechanical coupled finite element model of the bilayer Cu/Si nanocantilevers was used to extract the effective Young's modulus from the measured pull-in voltage. The fabricated samples consist of 340 nm thick Si cantilevers with 10 and 50 nm thick physical vapor deposited Cu films. White light interferometry was used to measure the cantilever curvature and Stoney's equation was used to calculate the thin film stress. It is shown that the pull-in instability experiment and the cantilever curvature measurement can be used for fast and easy determination of Young's modulus and film stress of 10 and 50 nm thick Cu films, respectively.
With the increasing complexity and ongoing miniaturisation of microelectronic systems, reliability issues and their associated structural dimensions cross over from the microscale to the nanoscale. From this perspective, fracture of materials and material interfaces for microelectronic components is essentially a multiscale process. In this paper, interface delamination at the individual scales (atomistic, meso and micro) is considered, and specific analysis methods are discussed in order to compile understanding of contributions from each scale towards the macroscale response of an epoxy moulding compound. As will be addressed, the contributions from each scale can be applied to the next scale, and so the multiscale impact is derived sequentially rather than simultaneously in a single model. First, results on each scale are presented, considering the multilevel impact
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