Super smooth coatings, free from any droplets, and low compressive stress are the most beneficial characteristics of sputter coatings for cutting tools. HIPIMS adds to this an outstandingly high ionization level. Due to rather promising results, many cutting tool producers are already using HIPIMS coatings for their shank tools and cutting inserts.This presentation highlights the continuous development process that turns the benefits of the HIPIMS technology into productivity gains and quality enhancements for metal cutting applications.Whereas comparable conventional nano-structured (Ti,Al)N coatings have a hardness of 25 GPa and a Young's modulus as a measure of the toughness properties of 460 GPa, the hardness of the new HIPIMS coating is higher than 30 GPa with a Young's modulus of 370 GPa. This combination of high hardness at elevated toughness is very favourable for interrupted cutting operations such as milling. This can be attributed to the dense structure of HIPIMS films as SEM images reveal. The coating structure becomes so dense due to the effective bombardment of the growing film with highly ionized species. Moreover it further improves the surface of HIPIMS coatings.The end user of a cutting tool sets its focus to the properties of the coating and, most important, to the machining characteristics of the film. Examples and field data will show how the most up-to-date HIPIMS coatings boost both productivity and quality.A second topic of this talk will be an overview on recent advances in HIPIMS deposition equipment. Focus will be set to hardware features of a large-scale HIPIMS coating machine for a high-volume production of indexable inserts.