Ask HN: How does pixel hinting work for CJK fonts?

I've noticed that CJK fonts (MS Gothic, MS Mincho etc.) seem to have pixel-perfect rendering below a certain size. I would like to understand the mechanism by which this happens. I'm often frustrated by font anti-aliasing/hinting at small sizes and I wonder if this rendering trait could somehow be transplanted to a programming focused font.

I'm aware there are lots of other ways to achieve pixel perfect font rendering, but I'm drawn to this property of CJK fonts because it seems to "just work" in all sorts of situations.

In any case, my google-fu is too weak for me to find a definitive answer to this, hoping someone can point me in the right direction. Thanks.