In the last decade there has been an exponential increase in microfluidic applications due to high surface-to-volume ratios and compactness of microscale devices, which makes them attractive alternatives to conventional systems. The continuing growing trends of microfluidic highlights the importance to understand the mechanism and fundamental differences involved influid flow and mixing at microscale. In the present article, the experimental research efforts in the area of microscale single- phase fluidflow and issues associated with investigations atmicroscale flow have been summarized. The experimental data are being analyzed interms of friction factor, laminar-to-turbulent transition, and the effect of roughness on fluid hydro dynamics for different cross- sectional geometries. The differences in the uncharacteristic behavior of the transport mechanisms through microchannels due to compressibility and rare faction, relative roughness, property variations and viscous dissipation effects are discussed. Finally, progress on recent development of micromixers has been reported for different micromixer types and designs. The micromixers have been quantified based on their operating ranges (interms of characteristic dimensionless numbers such as Reynolds number Re, Pecletnumber Pe, and Strouhalnumber St) and mixing characteristics. (C) 2010 ElsevierLtd. All rights reserved.