It is found that the surface migration and nucleation behaviors of InSb quantum dots on AlSb/Si substrates, formed by molecular beam epitaxy in Stranski-Krastanov (SK) growth mode, are dependent on the substrate temperature. At relatively high temperatures above 430 degrees C, quantum dots are migrated and preferentially assembled onto the surface steps of high defect AlSb layers grown on Si substrates, while they are uniformly distributed on the surface at lower temperatures below 400 degrees C. It is also found that quantum dots located on the defect sites lead to effective termination of the propagation of micro-twin-induced structural defects into overlying layers, resulting in the low defect material grown on a largely mismatched substrate. The resulting 1.0 microm thick Al(x)Ga(1-x)Sb (x = 0.8) layer grown on the silicon substrate shows atomically flat (0.2 nm AFM mean roughness) surface and high crystal quality, represented by a narrow full width at half-maximum of 300 arc s in the x-ray rocking curve. The room-temperature electron mobility of higher than 16 000 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) in InAs/AlGaSb FETs on the Si substrate is obtained with a relatively thin buffer layer, when a low defect density ( approximately 10(6) cm(-2)) AlGaSb buffer layer is obtained by the proposed method.