A spark plasma sintering technique has been used for the fabrication of $Al_2O_3$-SiC nanocomposites at the low temperature of $1100^{circ}C$∼$1500^{circ}C$. The sintered $Al_2O_3$-SiC composites shows very homogeneous microstructure without any particular abnormal grain growth, indicating that the addition of nano-sized SiC particles is very effective to control grain growth and to induce the residual stress in the $Al_2O_3$ matrix, resulting in the intragranular fracture. These SiC particles are present in the grain boundaries and also intragrain, depending on the sintering condition, and improve remarkably the mechanical properties of $Al_2O_3$-SiC composite through the mechanisms of strengthening and toughening induced by crack diffraction and crack bridging.