A method is disclosed for preparing carrier wafers for semiconductor device manufacture. The method includes the steps of sorting a plurality of standard carrier wafer blanks into batches by thickness to define a batch of starting carrier wafers that are within a predetermined tolerance of one another, reducing the thickness of the sorted carrier wafers to within 10 microns of a final target thickness, and polishing the sorted carrier wafers to the final target thickness. The polished carrier wafers are mounted to device precursor wafers having at least one semiconductor epitaxial layer on a substrate by joining one surface of a carrier wafer to the epitaxial layer on a substrate. The thickness of the device precursor wafer is then reduced by removing material from the device precursor substrate opposite the joined epitaxial layer.