Cabot Microelectronics Corp. engages in the development, manufacture, and sale of chemical mechanical planarization consumables products. It operates through the following segments: Electronic Materials and Performance Materials segment. The Electronic Materials segment consists of CMP slurries and polishing pads businesses and KMG electronic chemicals business. The Performance Materials segment includes KMG's heritage pipeline performance and wood treatment businesses and QED business. The firm offers chemical mechanical planarization slurries for polishing many of the conducting, insulating and isolating materials used in integrated circuit devices, and for polishing the disk substrates and magnetic heads used in hard disk drives. It also develops, manufactures and sells chemical mechanical planarization polishing pads, which are used in conjunction with slurries in the chemical mechanical planarization process. The company was founded by William P. Noglows in October 1999 and is headquartered in Aurora, IL.