Joule heat is generated by applying an electric filed to a conductive layer located beneath or above the amorphous silicon film, and is used to raise the temperature of the silicon film to crystallization temperature. An electric field was applied to an indium tin oxide (ITO) conductive layer to induce Joule heating in order to carry out the crystallization of amorphous silicon. Polycrystalline silicon was produced within the range of a millisecond. To investigate the kinetics of Joule-heating induced crystallization (JIC) solid phase crystallization was conducted using amorphous silicon films deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition and using tube furnace in nitrogen ambient. Microscopic and macroscopic uniformity of crystallinity of JIC poly-Si was measured to have better uniformity compared to that of poly-Si produced by other methods such as metal induced crystallization and Excimer laser crystallization.