Carbohydrate microarray is a new kind of promising biological detection technology following the gene microarray , protein2chip and tissue microarray. The efficiency and speed of carbohydrate chemistry research are improved due to the advantages of carbohydrate microarray such as less dosage of samples , higher specificity and high2throughput . This article introduces the preparations of 2D carbohydrate microarray based on covalent immobilization and noncovalent physical adsorption. A novel method of designing 3D gel carbohydrate microarray based on polymerization is also described. The applications of carbohydrate microarray in lectins function research , virus infection , bacteria detection and immunological research are introduced likewise. Finally , the future trend of carbohydrate microarray is also discussed.