With the conclusion of LOPE-C (Large-area, Organic & Printed Electronics Convention) 2011, which was held June 28-30 at Messe Frankfurt, industry leaders and exhibitors alike said they were pleased with the conference.

The numbers told a strong story: Attendance was more than 1,150, up 35 percent from 850 people in 2010. Exhibition space was up 30 percent from 2010, as 91 companies demonstrated, on a display area of 1,500 square meters, their latest developments and products in the field of organic and printed electronics. In addition, there were 182 presentations given at the conference.

LOPE-C 2011 was jointly organized by the Organic and Printed Electronics Association (OE-A) and Mesago Messe Frankfurt GmbH, and OE-A leaders said the conference went very well.

Wolfgang Mildner, outgoing OE-A chairman, said that the conference went better than expected.

“What we are seeing is that attendees have made advances in printed electronics, and we are seeing that applications are heading for production,” said Mildner, who is an OE-A board member and managing director of PolyIC GmbH & Co. KG. “There are a lot of business opportunities now.”

“The exhibitors say they are very satisfied with the exhibition,” said Dr. Stephan Kirchmeyer, director of production and technology for Heraeus Clevios GmbH and the incoming OE-A chairman. “The feedback we received said that attendees really appreciated the talks, especially during the business and technical conferences.”

Thomas Kolbusch, vice president of Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH, served as the chair for this year’s exhibition.

“It was very good,” Kolbusch said. “We have seen an increase in traffic on the exhibition floor even while the conferences have been full. I spoke with a lot of exhibitors are they have been very satisfied. The poster session went very well, as did the business conference.”

Exhibitors were also pleased with the conference, with printed electronics suppliers saying that they are seeing more serious interest in specific applications.

“LOPE-C has been real hectic, but you get the feeling that the discussions are much more mature than even just a few months ago,” said Geir Harald Aase, vice president communications and IR, Thin Film Electronics ASA. “End-users are now working on concepts.”

On the organic photovoltaic (OPV) side, officials of Eight19 and Konarka Technologies GmbH said the conference showed the interest in OPV technology.

“It’s been a good conference,” said Simon Bransfield-Garth, chief executive of Eight19. “The market is at a stage where people are open to discussing ideas. OPV is now starting to see more solid business cases, and companies are beginning to be more specific about who their customers will be.”

“There was high-level interest both from R&D and business development,” said Herman Issa, representative sales and strategy manager, Konarka Technologies GmbH.

“The conference was good, and more and more people are interested in printed batteries,” said Risto Huvila, COO of Enfucell. “People are now talking about prototyping and pricing for hundreds of thousands of batteries. Now we need to see the challenge of integrated manufacturing solved.”

Equipment and raw materials manufacturers also felt that LOPE-C showed the potential of printed electronics.

“LOPE-C went really well,” said Stan Farnsworth, vice president of marketing for NovaCentrix. “More companies are becoming more project-oriented, which we can dive into right away.”

“LOPE-C was a good conference, and very educational for us,” said Eytan Benhamou, vice president Europe Printing Product Group at MEGTEC Systems SAS.

“We are seeing a lot of interest in gravure printing at LOPE-C,” said Udo Dittmar, president, Daetwyler R&D Corporation. “We are seeing companies going from the lab to production now that the proof of concept is done.”

“I thought LOPE-C went very well,” said Ryan Hathaway, applications engineer for Xenon Corporation. “There were the major European and international players here in inks, machinery and end-users. We saw a good amount of interest and got a lot of excellent inquiries and leads from end-users.”

“The conference was very nice,” said Mathias Borella, sales and business development manager for Ceradrop. “We met many new contacts and have found many new opportunities.”

“For us, it was very successful,” said Tino Petsch, CEO of 3D-Micromac AG. “We got good feedback from our customers and met a lot of new contacts. We are also seeing more interest now in industrial manufacturing.”

Dr. Martina Weidner, R&D head of ALTANA Technology Platform Printed Electronics, said that ALTANA met a lot of new contacts at LOPE-C. “We met with a lot of brand owners and are seeing more people from the electronics business,” Dr. Weidner added.