Batteries employing lithium chemistry have been intensively investigated because of their high energy attributes which may be deployed for vehicle electrification and large-scale energy storage applications. Another important direction of battery research for micro-electronics, however, is relatively less discussed in the field but growing fast in recent years. This paper reviews chemistry and electrochemistry in different microbatteries along with their cell designs to meet the goals of their various applications. The state-of-the-art knowledge and recent progress of microbatteries for emerging micro-electronic devices may shed light on the future development of microbatteries towards high energy density and flexible design. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.