Already very early in the development history of microelectronics components, researchers ran into problems with ‘stress’. Actually, one could have expected this: When putting different materials together, with different thermal expansion coefficients or lattice distances, and subjecting them to high temperature steps, stress is bound to pop-up. And too high stress easily results in damage. However, mechanical stress is not always bad. It affects important material properties such as the mobility of charge carriers and helps MEMS to stay straight. As such, it can be turned into something positive. Indeed, also microelectronics devices, in some cases, work better under stress.
This lecture will present the never-ending story of stress in microelectronics and show how stress was measured and modeled, and, depending on the situation, solved, used or circumvented. It is a story of the good, the bad and the ugly.