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The stress‐temperature and stress‐time behavior in electrochemically deposited Cu(1.5 at% Ag) was investigated by substrate curvature measurements. Film stress is separated into the average stress in the grain boundary and the average stress in the grain volume by assuming that grain boundary diffusion is the dominant stress relaxation mechanism. The athermal flow stress, the activation energy for grain boundary diffusion, and the elastic properties are discussed in dependence on film thickness.

Residual stresses are commonly generated during the deposition process of thin films and can influence the reliability of the deposited systems e.g. due to fatigue, aging effects or debonding. Therefore, an evaluation of such stresses in thin films is of crucial importance for metallization of microelectronic devices and MEMS. Residual stresses can be determined experimentally by substrate curvature or X‐ray diffraction measurements. The modeling of residual stresses generally deals with the calculation of the thermal ones alone. In the present work, a model is proposed, where intrinsic stresses are calculated explicitly based on the Tsui‐Clyne model. The aim of this model, called self‐consistent model, is to predict residual stresses in thin films independent on measurements. The simulated values are compared with experimental results for the following systems: Ta/Si, Mo/Si, Al/SiO2/Si and Pd/SiO2/Si.