Powder injection molding (PIM) is cost effective in the high volume production of small, complex precision parts. A subset of PIM is metal injection molding (MIM) when the applied powder is metallic. Metal injection molding (MIM) is a metallurgical method that allows creating sintered metal parts with a more complex shape and a uniform density compared with regular powder metallurgical, i.e. uniaxially compacted, sintered part.

This process contains several stages: first, a ceramic or metallic powder and a polymeric compound (binder) are mixed together. This mixture (“feedstock”) is then injected into a mould to produce a green part. Thereafter the binder is removed from the parts in two stages (debinding and presintering), and finally these parts are sintered to obtain parts with high relative density.