Micro-scale manipulation is a technology of manipulating micro/nanoparticles precisely including trapping, filtering, moving and sorting particles like cells, biomacromolecules and nano drugs, with a vast array of potential uses in biomedicine, chemical analysis, materials science and other fields. By applying acoustic waves, acoustic manipulation has some advantages including non-contact, penetrability and versatility, no biochemical decorations to particles. In recent years, the manipulation of particles based on surface acoustic wave (SAW) has attracted wide attention with the development of MEMS technology and microfluidics science. Due to the advantages such as high frequency, localization of the energy and easy integration with other on-chip units, the microfluidic chip is an excellent tool to observe the manipulation of cells, microbubbles and other bioparticles. In this paper, recent advancements in acoustic manipulation using acoustic steaming and radiation force were discussed. In addition, some perspectives on the future development of this dynamic field were proposed as well.