Abstract: A review is given on the current state and recent progress in the research of tribo-electrochemistry in aqueous media and non-aqueous media, respectively, with special attention being paid to the triboelectrochemical mechanisms for the control of friction and wear. Along with a summary on the conventional polishing principles of hard and brittle materials, the tribo-electrochemical polishing method is proposed. Preliminary test results show that tribo-electrochemical polishing is promising to become the critical technology in the high efficient polishing and planarization of microelectronic materials.