Book excerpt: This volume is a collection of papers which were presented at the 2001 International Conference on Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP 2001) held at Ise Shima, Mie, on November 14-16, 2001. This symposium is second conference followed the previous successful first International RTP conference held at Hokkaido in 1997. The RTP 2001 covered the latest developments in RTP and other short-time processing continuously aiming to point out the future direction in the Silicon ULSI devices and II-VI, III-V compound semiconductor devices.This book covers the following areas: advanced MOS gate stack, integration technologies, advancd channel engineering including shallow junction, SiGe, hetero-structure, novel metallization, inter-connect, silicidation, low-k materials, thin dielectrics including gate dielectrics and high-k materials, thin film deposition including SiGe, SOI and SiC, process and device modelling, Laser-assisted crystallization and TFT device fabrication technologies, temperature monitoring and slip-free technologies.