Book excerpt: The development of electronics that can operate at high temperatures has been identified as a critical technology for the next century. Increasingly, engineers will be called upon to design avionics, automotive, and geophysical electronic systems requiring components and packaging reliable to 200 °C and beyond. Until now, however, they have had no single resource on high temperature electronics to assist them. Such a resource is critically needed, since the design and manufacture of electronic components have now made it possible to design electronic systems that will operate reliably above the traditional temperature limit of 125 °C. However, successful system development efforts hinge on a firm understanding of the fundamentals of semiconductor physics and device processing, materials selection, package design, and thermal management, together with a knowledge of the intended application environments. High Temperature Electronics brings together this essential information and presents it for the first time in a unified way. Packaging and device engineers and technologists will find this book required reading for its coverage of the techniques and tradeoffs involved in materials selection, design, and thermal management and for its presentation of best design practices using actual fielded systems as examples. In addition, professors and students will find this book suitable for graduate-level courses because of its detailed level of explanation and its coverage of fundamental scientific concepts. Experts from the field of high temperature electronics have contributed to nine chapters covering topics ranging from semiconductor device selection to testing and final assembly.