The book is primarily aimed at students in electronic engineering and computer science but its content should also be of interest to research workers in these and other areas. It is assumed that the reader has a reasonably good knowledge of physics. A knowledge of chemistry is an advantage but not absolutely essential as most of the required material is provided as "asides" in the text. There are bibliographies at the end of several chapters that are intended as guidelines for further reading. There are also many worked examples and most chapters contain a range of tutorial exercises. The first chapter gives a brief historical review of components, materials and technologies which should help to provide a perspective for the remainder of the book. The second chapter provides a minimalist approach to solid state devices, treating them initially as black boxes with specified properties. This is modified in later chapters when reference is made to optimizing component design for use in particular microelectronic applications. The remainder of the book then falls into three distinct areas - process technology, component integration and integrated circuits and systems.