Elevated temperature tensile/creep test of UV-LIGA nickel thin film for design of high-density micro connector

This paper describes mechanical properties of UV-LIGA Ni films at elevated temperatures for design of a high-density micro connector. A compact tensile tester operated under a scanning probe microscope (SPM) was newly developed, and it characterized a stress-strain relation and creep behavior of the Ni films at temperatures ranging from 300 K to 573 K. 600 /spl mu/m-long, 15 /spl mu/m-thick and 50 /spl mu/m-wide Ni specimens were fabricated by UV-LIGA process with a thick photoresist. This research proposed an inelastic constitutive equation of UV-LIGA Ni films for an optimum design of micro connector by finite element analyses.