TiN thin films have been deposited on silicon wafers by electron beam evaporation of Ti with simultaneous assistance of nitrogen ion bombardment (IBAD technique). In order to reduce the oxygen incorporation in the films, a Ti pre-evaporation was done just before the deposition process. We have investigated the influence of the film thickness on both the structural and mechanical properties of the films. We found hard TiN films (of about 28 GPa) with very low film roughness (less than 3 nm for film thickness of 0.8 mum) and values for the grain sizes of roughly 20 nm as revealed by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) analysis was carried out to obtain the film stoichiometry showing almost pure TiN films with a very low content of oxygen (less than 2 at.%).