Recent few years saw a surge of new applications in consumer products, including components for cell phones, laptops, watches, and even jean buttons. Designers take advantage of certain characteristics of MIM process, especially its ability to produce complex shapes and smooth finish. The smooth as-sintered surface of MIM parts allows fewer burnishing steps than other fabrication processes in order to get the desired mirror polish, which reduces reliance on the costly hand polishing steps. Stainless steel watchcase serves as a good example in this regard. It used to require 6 burnishing steps following massive forging, but now with MIM it only requires 2 or 3.

The photo shows a range of buttons and decorative bars from 316L stainless steel developed by Eversun for a cell phone manufacturer. Following MIM processing, the components were polished and eventually finished using vacuum sputtering technique.