Abstract: The stress at the edges of a thin film conductor can be reduced by noncoincident layered structures, which takes advantage of the characteristic stress polarity changing from tensile to compressive or vice versa in the edge vicinity in order to avoid device reliability and performance problems. By using noncoincident layered structures, destructive stress interference from different layers can be achieved to reduce the stress or stress gradient at the edge. The structures and methods disclosed herein can advantageously be used in many integrated circuit and device manufacturing applications (including gates, wordlines, and bitlines).