Recently, Silicon On Insulator (SOI) devices emerged to achieve better device characteristics such as higher operation speed, lower power consumption and latch-up immunity. Nevertheless, there are many detrimental defects in SOI wafers such as hydrofluoric-acid (HF)-defects, pinhole, islands, threading dislocations (TD), pyramid stacking faults (PSF), and surface roughness originating from quality of buried oxide film layer. Although the number of defects in SOI wafers has been greatly reduced over the past decade, the turn over of high-speed microprocessors using SOI wafers has been delayed because of unknown defects in SOI wafers. A new characterization method is proposed to investigate the crystalline quality, the buried oxide integrity and some electrical parameters of bonded SOI wafers. In this study, major surface defects in bonded SOI are reviewed using HF dipping, Secco etching, Cu-decoration followed by focused ion beam (FIB) and transmission electron microscope (TEM).