Electrical isolation of the billion or so active components in each integrated device is achieved using shallow trench isolation (STI) which requires chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) involving silicon dioxide removal at a high rate and stopping on an underlying silicon nitride film. Several colloidal slurries with various additives can yield the desired high rate selectivity between the oxide and nitride films during CMP while maintaining an acceptably low nitride rate. Here, many of such high selectivity STI CMP slurries described in the literature are reviewed along with the characteristics of the colloidal dispersions like the abrasives, additives, the interactions between them and with the films being planarized and the associated pH range in which the high selectivity is observed. The mechanisms proposed to explain the high reactivity of ceria with oxide, the role of additives in suppressing the nitride removal rate and resulting high selectivity are discussed. Reduction of a multitude of defects in post-CMP processed STI structures still remains an important challenge, especially as the feature sizes continue to shrink. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by ECS.