The first demonstration of micromachined devices that emulate the functions of laboratory chemical instrumentation, i.e., the silicon gas chromatograph (GC), is now over three decades old.  Due largely to the modest performance of these early devices, further developments in MEMS-based chemical instrumentation were slow to materialize.  Microfabricated fluidic devices that accomplished chemical measurement strategies were first reported in the early 1990s and have several demonstrated significant advantages over conventional approaches. Since that time there has been rapidly growing interest in microfabricated fluidic devices (microchips).  The diversity of biochemical measurement techniques that have been implemented on microchips includes various electrophoretic and chromatographic separations, chemical and enzymatic reactions, noncovalent recognition interactions, sample concentration enhancement, and cellular manipulations.  In addition, the types of samples addressed by microchips has been broad in scope, e.g., small ions and molecules, single and double stranded DNA, amino acids, peptides, and proteins. These devices have low cost and small footprints while consuming miniscule quantities of reagents and can rapidly produce precise results.  All of these features suggest the possibility to perform chemical and biochemical experimentation on a massive scale at low cost on a bench top, a goal being pursued by many laboratories around the world. This tutorial lecture will be directed toward those researchers who are new to these types of devices.  Background will be provided on fabrication techniques and principles, implementation of the devices, and performance metrics.