As the Fifth LOPE-C (Large-area, Organic & Printed Electronics) 2013 concluded at Messe Munchen in Munich, Germany, organizers noted that the conference and exhibition enjoyed strong growth, with attendance up 20% to 1,800 compared to last year.

The conference, sponsored by the OE-A (Organic and Printed Electronics Association) and Messe Munchen, also showed gains in terms of exhibitors, with 110 exhibitors displaying their latest innovations, up from 99 in 2012.

“LOPE-C 2013 was a great success with new record participation from the exhibitor side (110 exhibitors) from Asia, Europe and North America, as well as more than 1,800 participants ( up 20%) from 40 countries,” said Wolfgang Mildner, LOPE-C chairman, OE-A board member and managing director of PolyIC GmbH & Co KG. “We are very pleased with the results and received excellent feedback from both exhibitors and attendees.”

The presenters offered their insight into the growing opportunities for printed electronics applications. Stephan Berlitz, head of lighting innovations and functions at Audi, gave one of the most interesting talks during the opening Plenary Session as he discussed the potential of OLED lighting in the automotive marketplace.

“OLED technology is at the beginning,” Berlitz said. “We see it getting more flexible, more 3-dimensional in the future. This will create many new possibilities.”

Mildner said that feedback from exhibitors indicated that attendees are seeking more specific information on how they can use printed electronics.

“The general feedback from exhibitors was that they had more visitors to their booths, more concrete discussions on projects and specific applications, and a significant increase on the end-user side – in particular from the automotive, packaging/printing industries, advertising and consumer electronics,” Mildner said. “The quality of contacts clearly moved from a search for general information to discussing specific needs and projects.

“The feedback from end-users we received was that they were pleased to see more and more real-world applications and commercial products at LOPE-C,” Mildner added. “Additionally, the strong presence of equipment makers who showed their production machines is additional proof that printed electronics is entering the next level of maturity. All in all, we received very positive feedback, and we will continue on our path to make LOPE-C even more attractive for end-users.”

Lea Schröter, marketing executive for Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH, said that Coatema’s coaters drew much attention at LOPE-C.

“LOPE-C 2013 was a great success for us,” said Schröter. “Lots of visitors were interested in our new technologies. We presented three new pilot coaters which were especially build for printed electronics: The Easycoater second generation, the Basecoater third generation and the Smartcoater producing live at the Demo Line. In particular, the Smartcoater on the Demo Line drew strong interest, which shows the increasing sales volume of the last two years.

“At our booth, we had qualified visitor traffic, with international guests with real projects over the period of the whole two days,” Schröter added. “The multitude of end-users (e.g. in the field of automotive, packaging and display) showed us clearly their increasing interest by their concrete questions.”

“Our general impression was that LOPE-C was well attended,” said Dr. Srinivas “Jimmy” Gowrisanker, manager, technical sales and marketing for Plextronics. “There were lots of tool manufactures, some material suppliers and printed electronics product development companies. The traffic and material enquiries at our booth was higher for us this year than previous years. There were lots of good contacts, mainly from research institutes and some from industrial reps.

“It seems like the market is gaining momentum, but we are really not sure when it will take off, especially printed electronics as it relates to OLEDs and OPVs,” Dr. Gowrisanker added. “A lot of effort is still in the R&D phase at the university level. This is promising in a sense that folks believe that there is room for improvement and are still interested in research to get from lab scale to the commercialization stage.”

One exhibitor who did not wish to be named offered a somewhat contrasting opinion on the conference.

“While the organizers will likely claim growth as measured by attendees and exhibitors, it was essentially comprised of students, researchers from universities and government institutions, materials suppliers and equipment suppliers,” the exhibitor noted. “There were a handful of printed electronic manufacturing/product companies and an equally small, if not smaller, number of end users. There are indeed bright spots as indicated by progress towards commercialization, but I believe that those that have not exited the space (forced or by choice) understand that commercialization of electronic products is a long and difficult path.”

One area of interest was the Demo Line, set up by the OE-A Working Group “Upscaling Production” in cooperation with two research centers and 11 international companies. The line showed how fully functional battery testers are produced in several printing and coating processes. Thomas Kolbusch, vice president, Coatema Coating Machinery and exhibition chair of LOPE-C, said that there was a great response to the LOPE-C demo line during the entire show.

“There was great interest from visitors, and the guided tours were always overbooked,” Kolbusch added. “For the first time, production of a fully functional demonstrator on a mass production line was shown in a coordinated effort of 13 equipment manufacturers and material suppliers. We are looking forward to expanding the demo line activities and to continuing this success story at LOPE-C 2014.”

The next LOPE-C will be held in Munich from May 26-28, 2014. For more information, check the web at www.lope-c.com. b at www.lope-c.com.