AbstractThe stress distribution about a series of deliberately fabricated defects in a Cu/Ni/Au/Cr redundant metal stack deposited on a Cr/Cu/Cr serpentine has been studied via x-ray microbeam diffraction using the sin² ψ, technique. Strong directional anisotropies in the stress were found for both the second level nickel and copper. The extent of nickel stress relaxation from the edge of a defect far exceeded that predicted by a simple metal on substrate model. The size of the defect did not appear to significantly influence the stress distribution in the second level metal; however, the data suggest that the linewidth may influence the magnitude of the stress along the length of a line when near a defect or other sharp discontinuity.