Cemented carbides are produced by sintering hard metal carbide powder. These alloys are called simply "hard metal" and have the hardness second to that of diamond and approximately twice that of steel.
Generaly they are produced by sintering mixed tungsten carbides with cobalt binders and used mainly in the field requires wear resistance such as cutting tools or dies.

Cemented carbides are used primarily in the applications need wear resistance such as cutting tools or dies. Depending on the application, they are added with tungsten carbide or tantal carbide and so on to improve their characteristics.
Cemented carbides get no big reduction of their characteristics at high temperature and have excellent wear resitance. So they are used for the machining tools (eg. lathes, milling machines) and manufacturing automobile parts (eg. engines, transmissions, steering). They are giving the machining accuracy and reducing the manufacturing costs.