As the second most widely used metal group worldwide, light metals including aluminium, titanium, and magnesium alloys are essential to many industries and applications. All light metals require coatings to provide significant functional properties, especially corrosion resistance, however, many current coatings solutions are neither cost effective nor environmentally friendly. Cirrus patented Hybrid™ coating technology is an extremely thin, low cost alternative that offers excellent corrosion resistance along with superior electrical and mechanical performance. Cirrus Hybrid™ coatings and their production process are environmentally friendly, with no toxic consumables or by products such as Cr6+, Cd. Hybrid™ coating technology has a great compatibility with existing plating processes including Ni, Cu, Zn-Ni, Ag, Au, which offers wide commercial applications and this paper introduces the fundamentals of this new coating technology.