An overview of the definition and development of, factors that contribute to, applications and markets for and the design of high performance/high temperature polymers is presented. Of the many families of high performance/high temperature polymers known, the most popular families consisting of polyimides, polyarylene ethers and phenylethynyl-terninated oligomers are used to demonstrate the basic principles in polymer development. Chemical structure/property relationships are used to show how polymers can be designed with a unique combination of properties. The estimated worldwide market for high temperature polymers in 2000 was 206,700,000 kgs constituting $4.36B with polyimides comprising 3,982,000 kgs or $1 .07B (24% of the dollar value). With an improvement in the world economy, this market is predicted to grow substantially

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