Mechanical characterisation of thin metal layers by modelling of the nanoindentation experiment

Obtaining material data for thin metal layers is a mayor issue in the reliability assessment of microelectronic products. Therefore a method for obtaining elastic-plastic material data is analyzed and discussed in this paper. It is based on the nanoindentation of a film on a silicon substrate and the modeling of it. Thus it becomes possible to fit specific material models to the indentation experiment. Results are shown for two AlSiCu layers.