According to a preferred embodiment of the method of the invention, an assembly is produced comprising a temporary wafer and one or more tiles that are removably attached to the temporary wafer, preferably through a temporary adhesive layer. The tiles comprise a carrier portion and an active material portion. The active material portion is attached to the temporary carrier. The assembly further comprises a single continuous layer of the first material surrounding each of the one or more tiles. Then the back side of the carrier portions of the tiles and of the continuous layer of the first material are simultaneously planarized, and the planarized back sides of the tiles and of the continuous layer of the first material are bonded to a permanent carrier wafer, after which the temporary carrier wafer is removed. The method results in a hybrid wafer comprising a planar top layer formed of the material of the continuous layer with one or more islands embedded therein, the top layer of the islands being formed by the top layer of the active material portion of the one or more tiles.