Solid-carbide end milling cutter having a TiAlN—ZrN coating

A method for the production of a coated solid carbide milling cutter comprising the steps of:

• providing a substrate of hard metal having a surface;
• and
• applying a multi-layer coating to the substrate via a PVD process at least to surface regions of the cutter that come into contact with a workpiece during a milling operation, wherein the multi-layer coating includes a single-layer or multi-layer functional layer deposited directly onto the substrate surface and a single-layer or multi-layer covering layer deposited above the functional layer, wherein the functional layer of one or more layers of TixAl1-xN with 0.3≤x≤0.55 and having an overall thickness from 1 μm to 15 μm is deposited by high power impulse magnetron sputtering, the covering layer of one or more layers of ZrN and having an overall thickness of 50 nm to 1 μm is deposited by high power impulse magnetron sputtering, wherein during the deposition of the functional layer power pulses are applied in a coating chamber to sputtering targets of material to be deposited, which power pulses transfer an amount of energy to each sputtering target that exceeds a maximum power density in the pulses of ≥500 W/cm2.