  Recent results in the literature provide computational evidence that
stabilized semi-implicit time-stepping method can efficiently simulate phase
field problems involving fourth-order nonlinear dif- fusion, with typical
examples like the Cahn-Hilliard equation and the thin film type equation. The
up-to-date theoretical explanation of the numerical stability relies on the
assumption that the deriva- tive of the nonlinear potential function satisfies
a Lipschitz type condition, which in a rigorous sense, implies the boundedness
of the numerical solution. In this work we remove the Lipschitz assumption on
the nonlinearity and prove unconditional energy stability for the stabilized
semi-implicit time-stepping methods. It is shown that the size of stabilization
term depends on the initial energy and the perturba- tion parameter but is
independent of the time step. The corresponding error analysis is also
established under minimal nonlinearity and regularity assumptions.
