The object is to demonstrate that residual stress behavior in polyimide thin films depends on the degree of chain rigidity of the polyimide backbone structure. The comparison of the residual stress and thermal properties indicates that the residual stress of a polyimide thin film is primarily dependent on the polymer chain rigidity, fully rodlike poly(p-phenylene pyromellitimide);PMDA-PDA semi-rigid poly(p-phenylene biphenyltetracarboximide);BPDA-PDA semi-flexible poly(4,4’-oxy diphenylene pyromellitimide);PMDA-ODA, poly(4-4’-oxydiphenylene biphenyltetracarboximide); BPDA-ODA and flexible poly (4’4-oxydiphenylene benzophenonetetracarboximide); BTDA-ODA were prepared. Residual stress was measured by Thin Film Stress Measurement System(TFSMS) using wafer bending method. As a result, the higher polymer chain rigidity of polyimide thin films shows the lower residual stress in tension on the Si wafer substrate. among the polyimide thin films studied here, rodlike PMDA-PDA shows excellent thermal stability, the highest glass transition temperature, and the lowest residual stress, 5MPa(compression mode), but flexible BTDA-ODA exhibited the highest overall residual stress, 41 MPa with low glass transition temperature, 280℃. In addition, the T_g’s of the polyimides are estimated from the overall residual stress-temperature profile.