Disclosed herein is a method of forming a stress relieved film stack, the method comprising forming a film stack on a first side of a substrate, the film stack comprising a plurality of film layers and creating a plurality of film stack openings according to a cutting pattern and along at least a portion of a buffer region. The plurality of film stack openings extend from a top surface of the film stack to the substrate. A deflection of the substrate may be determined, and the cutting pattern selected prior to creating the film stack openings based on the deflection of the substrate. The substrate may have a deflection of less than about 2 μm after creating the plurality of film stack openings. And at least one of the plurality of film layers may comprise one of titanium nitride, silicon carbide and silicon dioxide.