The proceedings of Spark Plasma Synthesis and Processing of Materials, the 7th Pacific Rim Conference on Ceramic and Glass Technology (Pac Rim 7), held in Shanghai, China, between November 11 14, 2007, is discussed. The use of electric fields or currents to enhance sintering has become the focus of intense worldwide effort. However, most of the work done using the pulse electric current sintering method has focused on achieving certain benefits with little or no attempt to understand the underlying fundamental issues. The papers presented at the symposium reflects the emphasis of the fundamental issues with this rapidly growing processing approach.