A new finite element approach to stress analysis in microfabrication technology

It is well known that the standard displacement-based ®nite element approach to viscoelastic stress analysis in microfabrication technology is susceptible to the volumetric locking and highly oscillatory pressure solutions. As an e€ective remedy for these problems, a new ®nite element approach based on separate weak statements for the displacement and pressure is proposed in this paper. Apart from the various existing techniques, the proposed approach is inherently free from the constraints imposed on the selection of discrete approximation spaces and permits a robust and stable discretisation based on piecewise linear Galerkin elements. The accuracy and stability of the proposed methodology has been tested in numerical experiments involving stress analysis problems from microfabrication de-position and native ®lm growing processes.