Speakers, Exhibitors Highlight Gains at LOPEC 2014

By David Savastano

As LOPEC 2014 concluded its second day at Messe Munich, OE-A and Messe Munich officials were joined by EU officials and leading executives to examine the state of organic and printed electronics.

Wolfgang Mildner, general chair of LOPEC, managing director of PolyIC GmbH & Co KG, and OE-A vice chairman, started the Plenary Session with a look at how LOPEC 2014 was doing compared to previous shows. Mildner noted that the show is setting records in terms of exhibitors and presentations; attendance figures still are being counted tomorrow.

“We have record participation,” Mildner said. “There are 139 exhibitors, which is a record, and our conference has more than 190 presentations. The Demo Line proves it is not only R&D, but it is also manufacturing and production.

“This all relies on innovation, and we still think there is a lot of room to innovate,” Mildner added. “The Innovation Showcase is highlighting products that are not ready for commercialization but are interesting, and our Start-up Forum allows us to draw attention to these companies.”

Next up was Rolf Najork, COO of Heraeus, who offered a major corporation’s perspective on the field of printed electronics (PE). He began by discussing the changing nature of business.

“There is shortened innovation time and product life cycles,” Najork said. “Profitable niches are having shortened life times. Global competition never sleeps. We want to focus on products that have an end benefit for consumers. We are leveraging our competence and system expertise across all our business units. We set up Cluster Development Teams for lead markets such as sensors, displays and consumer electronics, renewable energy and additive manufacturing.”

Khalil Rouhana, EC’s director components and systems, then discussed the EU’s role in developing organic and printed electronics.

“This is one of the most exciting areas we are working on,” Rouhana said. “The organic and large-area electronics (OLAE) market is thought to be $12 billion ion2013 and estimated to be $55 billion in 2023.

‘It is a challenging route from lab to fab and from fab to market,’ Rouhana noted. “The EU is funding €223 million euros on 51 R&D projects in the last seven years. We are spending €38 million on OLAEs and €18 million on OLED this year, and €14 million on pilot line for flexible substrates for OLEDs in 2015. We will help get OLAE from lab to fab to market.”

Jaap Lombaards, managing director of the Holst Centre, discussed hybrid systems, using conventional electronics such as silicon-based semiconductors or LED and LCD displays with organic materials to create flexible, ultra-thin systems.

“Health and well being is the leading opportunity, and a smart phone can become a health hub,” Lombaards said. “Compliance enhancing blister packs could have an enormous impacting the effectiveness of medications. Energy harvesting, flexible displays and barrier foils are also opportunities. Conventional and thin film electronics are in a very happy marriage right now, and are enabling flexible devices and many new applications.

After the Plenary Session, the OE-A, along with Rouhana and Messe Munchen’s Dr. Reinhard Pfeiffer discussed the possibilities for organic and printed electronics.

“Printed electronics has gained in the market and LOPEC shows this,” said Dr. Pfeeiffer, deputy CEO of Messe Munchen. “The number of exhibitors is up 26%, and we have 54 new exhibitors.”

“The Live Demo is the effort of many companies, and it is impressive. It is really working,” Mildner noted. “There are some early innovators at the Innovation Showcase, like Airbus, which is developing OLEDs for future airplanes.”

Dr. Stephan Kirchmeyer, chairman of the OE-A and head of the Business Unit Functional Coatings at Heraeus Precious Metals GmbH & Co. KG, reported on OE-A’s first Business Climate Survey, which offered lots of positive news for the industry.

Dr. Kirchmeier said that 70% of members expect growth in 2014, with the rest of the responders expecting business to stay the same. Fifty percent expect sales growth of up to 20%, while 30% expeect sales to increase more than 20%.

“We also found that the expected growth of incoming orders is 16% this year,” Dr. Kirchmeyera dded. “As a result, companies are expanding their investments in production, work force and R&D.”

According to the survey, the six key markets for organic and printed electronics are printing and packaging, consumer electronics, automotive, lighting, pharma and energy.
Rouhana concluded the discussion with some final thoughts on the organic and printed electronics industry.

“We see this industry having double-digit growth for the next 10 years, and this will impact the rest of the economy,” Rouhana said.

Concurrent Sessions

LOPEC 2014 then broke into five concurrent sessions, two each for theTechnical and Scientific tracks as well as the Start-up Forum. There was a wide variety of topics and a whole range of interesting talks.

In his talk on “Recent Progress in the Development of Integrated Stand-alone Electronic Systems.”
Henrik Sjoeberg
 of Thin Film Electronics AB discussed the progress Thinfilm is making in reaching production, noting that its gravure printed OTFTs results are good.

“We are on the way to smart products for health care in the home and cold chain transportation.,” Sjoeberg noted. “We have taken significant steps in the last year.”

Dr Christian Uhrich of Heliatek covered “Towards Roll-to-Roll Mass Production of Efficient Organic Vacuum-Deposited p-i-n Tandem Solar Cells.” Heliatek utilizes roll-to-roll vacuum deposition on PET in manufacturing its organic solar cells, and the company has been reporting excellent results.

“We have attained certified efficiency of 12% on a 1 cm2 cell, and there is room for further improvement,” Dr. Ulrich said. “Our best roll-to-roll produced cells are recording 6.8% efficiency.”

Blue Spark Technologies’ John Gannon discussed “Thin Batteries and Their Applications,” mentioning that the company is now receiving sizable commercial orders.

“We are only now reaching volume levels needed for scale cost reductions.,” Gannon said. “Primary markets for printed batteries are RF, interactive printed media, smart cards and transdermal patches, which is a growing area.”

In his talk on “Flexible Thin Film Plastic Photovoltaics for Energy Harvesting and Off-Grid Solar,” Dr. Michael Niggemann of Eight19, an organic solar cell manufacturer, talked about key markets for OPVs, including building integrated photovoltaics and off-grid power in areas like Africa where ] people use kerosene because they have no electricity.

“There is $38 billion a year spent on kerosene, and a 10 cent lamp costs $50 a year to run,” he said. He added that Eight19 is reaching 7.6% on its flexible cells produced roll-to-roll. “We are now fully fabricating roll-to-roll modules,” Dr. Niggelman said.

Brian Elolampi of MC10 discussed “MC10’s Biostamp Platform: Delivering Seamless, Body-Integrated Computing that Dissolves the Boundaries between Technology and Humans.” He said MC10 takes high-performance rigid electronics and reshapes then into unique form factors that can be integrated into the human body. They use silicon-based circuits cut ultra-thin so they become flexible and stretchable.

Next year’s LOPEC will be held March 3-5, 2015 in Munich. For more information, contact the OE-A at www.oe-a.org.