We describe the design and expected performance of BICEP, a millimeter wave receiver designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background. BICEP uses an array of polarization sensitive bolometers operating at 100 and 150 GHz to measure polarized signals over a 20 • field of view with ∼ 1 • resolution. BICEP is designed with particular attention to systematic effects which can potentially degrade the polarimetric fidelity of the observations. BICEP is optimized to detect the

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... int signature of a primordial gravitational wave background which is a generic prediction of inflationary cosmologies.