Strain-Energy Calculations in the Design of Cat´s Whiskers for Semi-Conductor Devices

Strain-energy methods have been used to study the mechanical behaviour of cat´s-whiskérs in semi-conductor devices, and the condition for zero transverse contact pressure and deflection has been expressed in the form ¿0Lxy/Idl=0, where x and y are parameters which define the shape of the whisker and I is the moment of inertia of the whisker cross-section. For wire whiskers this is equivalent to ¿0Lxydl = 0. The theory is perfectly general, and can be applied to plane whiskers of any shape. Formulae have been derived for calculating components of pressure and deflection parallel with and normal to the crystal face. Experiments on large-scale whisker models have shown close agreement with the theory.