Hard materials such as hardmetal, coated hardmetal, cermet, ceramics and diamond or c-BN sintered compact are a kind of grain-dispersed alloy with high volume of hard particles. These are used for cutting tools, wear-resistant tools, rock bits, high pressure apparatus, etc. The annual production in Japan is about 1.7 billion dollars (200 billion yen). This is greatly owed to the development in science and technology which has been accomplished by applying new concepts such as fine or uniform grain microstructure, orientation of crystal grains, functionally graded material, artificial lattice and coherent bonding in recent years. In this review, the development in recent years in Japan is briefly summarized.

• Hayashi Koji