An ion sensitive field effect transistor employing a special HCI heat treatment for the gate oxide layer along with tungsten metallization and multilayer encapsulation using fumed silica epoxy mixture was fabricated and its performance characteristics have been investigated. A theoretical model for the device operation is discussed, and it is shown that the experimental results are in good agreement with the theory. The fabricated device has excellent performance characteristics showing the fast response, long operation-life, small pH hysteresis, high sensitivity, etc. Especially, its stability has been greatly improved.