Wafer curvature, contact pressure, and film stresses have been a subject of interest to many researchers who are working on the modeling of within-wafer nonuniformity in chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). Wafer shape and film stresses prior to and after CMP have been measured before in order to correlate film stresses with removal rate distribution across the wafer. In this paper we describe measurements of wafer bending under static loading and in dynamic conditions. A finite element analysis is also carried out to model wafer bending under static loading. (C) 2004 The Electrochemical Society.