High speed steel is mainly used to make cutting-tools of machine tools and roll materials, which is of great significance to the development of manufacturing industry in our country. The research state and prospect of processing methods for high speed steel, including conventional casting, powder metallurgy, spray-up process and electroslag remelting were summarized. And the advantages and disadvantages of four preparation processes were discussed in this paper. The close attention was paid to the main objectives, temperature and time selection, phase transformation, precipitation hardening and carbide species of heat treatment process (section pretreatment, high temperature quenching and multiple tempering) . The conventional casting and powder metallurgy are going to be the main preparation technologies for high speed steel. Moreover, the emphasis and direction for the future heat treatment process study were proposed, including the types, dissolution, precipitation, transformation and distribution of carbides.