SiC powder was coated with SiO2 layer by chemical vapor deposition, and the SiC(core)/SiO2(shell) composite powder was consolidated to a SiC/SiO2 composite with a mosaic microstructure by spark plasma sintering (SPS) at 1923K for 1.8ks. The SiC(core)/SiO2(shell) powder with a 80-100nm thick SiO2 layer resulted in a SiC/SiO2 composite with a relative density of 97% and hardness and fracture toughness of 17.1GPa and 8.4MPam(1/2), respectively.