In this paper, platinum/titanium (Pt/Ti) film was introduced as a residual stress balance layer into wafer scale thick lead zirconate titanate (PZT) film fabrication by sol-gel method. The stress developing in PZT film's bottom electrode as well as in PZT film itself during deposition were analyzed; the wafer curvatures, PZT crystallizations and PZT electric properties before and after using Pt/Ti stress balance layer were studied and compared. It was found that this layer is effective to balance the residual stress in PZT film's bottom electrode induced by thermal expansion coefficient mismatch and Ti diffusion, thus can notably reduce the curvature of 4-in. wafer from -40.5 mu m to -12.9 mu m after PZT film deposition. This stress balance layer was also found effective to avoid the PZT film cracking even when annealed by rapid thermal annealing with heating-rate up to 10.5 degrees C/s. According to X-ray diffraction analysis and electric properties characterization, crack-free uniform 1-mu m-thick PZT film with preferred pervoskite (001) orientation, excellent dielectric constant, as high as 1310, and excellent remanent polarization, as high as 39.8 mu C/cm(2), can be obtained on 4-in. wafer. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.