One knife per powder steel
Powder metallurgy (PM) steel is steel made from alloyed metal powder: Bohler says its high purity powders are "subjected to a high pressure, high temperature process" to obtain a homogeneous, segregation-free tool steel. CPM is Crucible Industries' trademarked version, which Crucible says gives highly alloyed steels a finer, more uniform carbide distribution and improved toughness and grindability.
The Metal Powder Industries Federation defines powder metallurgy as a metal-forming process performed by heating compacted metal powders to just below their melting points. MPIF lists the consolidation of powders among the primary applications of hot isostatic pressing, which uses elevated temperature and isostatic gas pressure to eliminate porosity and increase density.
MPIF's definition is general: it also takes in press-and-sinter and metal injection molding, and no MPIF page cited here describes a knife steel, so for a blade steel the steelmaker's own data sheet is the source.
Crucible's CPM 20CV data sheet says the steel is made by the Crucible Particle Metallurgy Process, which gives a finer, more uniform carbide distribution. Crucible's S30V sheet says the CPM process yields superior dimensional stability, grindability and toughness compared to steels produced by conventional processes. That is Crucible on its own process against conventional production in general, not a ranking of any named steel; what sets how long an edge lasts is covered under edge retention.
CPM is a Crucible Industries trademark, so it names Crucible's process, not powder steel in general. Bohler calls M390 MICROCLEAN a martensitic chromium steel produced by powder metallurgy. Crucible says CPM MagnaCut's design eliminates chromium carbide in the heat treated microstructure, and it still lists the steel's chromium at 10.7%.
The Steel Lab documents steels from published datasheets and independent references. Its entries typed as powder metallurgy in the verified records are CPM S30V, CPM S35VN, CPM 20CV, Bohler M390 and CPM MagnaCut, each with that alloy's full profile.
Case says it has begun featuring CPM 20CV in special production runs of some of its traditional folding patterns. Each product page's spec table lists the steel the product data for that knife states; Knives Now does not test or grade steel.