Abstract: Chemical mechanical polishing is widely adopted in semiconductor industry as an essential process for obtaining ultra-flat and ultra-smooth surface. As one of the major consumables in chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) processes, retaining rings have been widely used in CMP processes. While retaining rings are mainly used to secure the wafer during polishing, they also facilitate slurry transport into the pad-wafer interface through a plurality of slots on their contacting surface and improve removal rate within-wafer nonuniformity (WIWNU). This paper introduced the effect of the retaining ring materials, slot numbers and angles, the contact angles of the retaining ring combined with the CMP process technology (slurry fluid, rotation rate, pressure, etc.) on CMP polishing effects (roughness, flatness, removal rate, etc.). In particular, the purpose of this study is to understand the effect of the retaining ring on tribological and kinetic attributes between pad, the profile of the material removal rate (MRR) and the WIWNU. The aim of this review is to open a new avenue towards the design and manufacture of new retaining rings for CMP.