The integration of advanced gate dielectric materials into CMOS technology presents several significant challenges.@footnote 1,2@ Moreover, the introduction of these materials is expected to occur at an unprecedented pace to meet industry technology forecasts. Although recent research has focused on the search for a material that yields a suitable (higher) dielectric constant than the industry benchmark SiO@sub 2@, a more important problem is the actual integration of any new dielectric material in existing CMOS flows in a cost-effective manner. These integration issues include etching, constituent stability, control of phase segregation and crystallization, dopant penetration, as well as gate electrode compatibility, which influence the resultant electrical properties. The study of these issues require substantial efforts in physical and electrical characterization. This talk will examine several of these integration issues in view of recent characterization studies and the associated challenges that must be addressed for successful high-k gate dielectric integration. This work is supported by the Texas Advanced Technology Program. @FootnoteText@@footnote 1@G.D.Wilk, R.M.Wallace and J.M.Anthony, J. Appl. Phys., 89, 5243 (2001). @footnote 2@R.M.Wallace and G.D.Wilk, Crit. Rev. in Sol. State Mat. Sci, 28, 231 (2003).