The material removal principle was analyzed.The effect of discrete cutting on the quality of the tooth surface was discussed. The traditional processing technologies included milling,scraping,grinding. The substance of these technologies was discrete cutting contact, and tooth surface quality (main accuracy and roughness) depended on the cutting degree of discretization: when the discrete degree was higher, the tool path distribution on the surface of the tooth was more obvious, the tooth surface quality was lower; when the degree of discretization approached to serialization, the density of the tool path was higher, the tooth surface quality was higher. Contactless electrochemical finishing machining and near net shape technique were introduced. Finally, according to the above process characteristics, prospect was presented.