ABSTRACT
The size of a singular stress region near an interface edge is dependent on the film thickness [Becker et al., 1997; Kitamura et al., 2003]. The thinner the film, the smaller the stress-concentrated region becomes. In a component of an advanced device, where the thickness is in the order of several tens of nanometers or less, the region size must be on a scale of several nanometers. In such a case, the applicability of the analysis based on the continuum theory is questionable because of the discreteness originating from atomic structure (the atomic distance is about 0.2-0.3 nm).
