Uniaxial strain on wafer-level was realised by mechanically bending and direct wafer bonding of Si wafers in the bent state followed by thinning one of the Si wafers by the smart-cut process. This approach is flexible and allows to obtain different strain values at wafer-level in both tension and compression. UV micro-Raman spectroscopy was used to determine the strain in the thin transferred Si layers. Numerical modelling by 3D finite elements of the strain provided a good description of the experimental results. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.