An innovative microcalorimeter has been developed for measuring specific heat of very small microgram samples in the temperature range from 1.5 to 50 K and in magnetic fields up to 11 T. The device is built from a commercial sapphire temperature chip (Cernox), which is modified by means of standard microfabrication techniques and which is used as a sample holder, temperature sensor, and sample heater. Compared to existing microcalorimeters the simple design of our instrument allows a fabrication of the device in a few process steps by using facilities present in a standard laboratory clean room. As an illustrative example for the performance of our device, the specific heat of an underdoped (La1−xSrx)2CuO4 and CaRuO3 single crystal has been measured by means of the relaxation time method as well as the ac method.