By Tom Henderson
Small Times Senior Writer
HANNOVER, Germany — The world of small tech has arrived at Europe’s largest exposition, the Hannover Trade Fair.
The show — actually six fairs at once that sprawl through 26 halls and cover 250,000 square meters of space — draws hundreds of thousands of visitors, and 7,000 exhibitors from more than 60 countries.
For the first time, the Hannover Fair has included a trade fair devoted exclusively to small tech. One of Europe’s foremost microtech researchers, Professor Wolfgang Ehrfeld of the Mainz Institute for Microtechnology, lobbied for the small tech addition.
Organizers had hoped for 400 exhibitors but say they are satisfied with the 302 who showed up today to fill the 75,000 square meters available in Hall 17.
They do admit disappointment at the meager U.S. presence, though. While there are 110 American exhibitors at the fair as a whole, there is just one in the microsystems pavilion: Xactix, a Pittsburgh company founded three ago by Ken Gabriel that uses a xenon difluoride process to etch glass.
The Semicon show in Munich this week has proved to be a major competitor, and reportedly organizers of both shows will meet later this week to see if they can avoid going head to head next year.
Michele Migliulo, president of Xactix, said that the high cost of the Hannover Trade Fair compared with other shows — $10,000 for a nine-meter-square exhibit — likely scared away some U.S. firms. Migliulo was able to get in for $3,500 as part of a cut-rate price available to start-ups willing to share space.
“That was still a lot of money for us, but they did a good job. It’s small but it’s nice. All I brought were the posters and they did everything else,” said Migliulo with a nod around him. “I’m quite satisfied with what they did for me.”
At 11 a.m. Monday, it was too early to determine if the traffic would warrant the entry fee, but Migliulo was confident things would go better than a fair in Dusseldorf in March. “I spent the week talking to no one and watching traffic go by.”
So why did he take the plunge on Hannover? “I’m expanding our presence internationally, and I think the best way to do that is in front of customers.”
Negotiations with some interested U.S. firms bogged down amid growing fears of recession and earnings worries among high-tech companies, fair organizers said. For others still trying to figure out the U.S. market, Europe may have seemed too remote to worry about.
“We had a list of real good prospects,” said Ellen McDevitt, program manager of Hannover Fairs USA, Inc., the American recruiting arm, “but we had a difficult time selling the idea of a European show. Number one, they didn’t have the money. Two, there’s so much going on in the United States they didn’t (feel the) need to come here.”
While the vast majority of small tech exhibitors are German, and many of those from government-supported research institutions, there was also a substantial international presence with companies from Japan, China, France, Great Britain, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Russia, which had a major presence with 16 exhibitors.
Enthusiasm, nonetheless
Professor Ehrfeld was part of two presentations Monday, including an afternoon session on how Europe can survive in the global economy. Unlike most scientific fairs and meetings that are presented in English, both presentations were in German without translation.
In between sessions, Ehrfeld met with Small Times and spoke enthusiastically about small tech, in general, and the success of a fair here devoted to microsystems.
“We had 300 this year. Next year we will have 600,” he said. “This will become a big part of the Hannover exposition. And we will have much more of a world presence. We will get the Japanese. We will get the Americans.”
And he praised the American model of entrepreneurship, saying his German compatriots had much to learn. “In the U.S., when people are successful, they are admired. Here, when people are successful, there is envy. It is a real difference in our country,” he said.
“And here, if we make a new development, we say, ‘Ooh, it is a new development, it will create a lot of problems.’ In the U.S., you say, ‘It is a new development, it will create a new future.’ “
Another boost
Marcel Dierselhuis founded Microstar in the Netherlands in 1990 to do precision engineering, and he says he’s been waiting 10 years for the microsystems industry to catch up to his vision. That time, he says, is now, which is why he chose Hannover as the place to unveil his standardized manufacturing process for making packaging systems for microsystems in high volumes in a clean-room environment.
He says his system, part of which ran behind him in mock-clean-room display, can do everything from prototype to high volume manufacturing, but admits, “now that we have volumes, we need clients with products.”
But Dierselhuis says that time is here. “It’s coming,” he said. “It’s finally begun happening, in the last six months.” He says he is now making the smallest flow sensor on the market and can use his high-volume standardized process down to 20-by-20 microns, and is hoping to use that capability to take aim at the U.S. market.
“This year will be the breakthrough year for us. The U.S. market is very focused on getting products to market, and American companies like to outsource. And they are aggressive. They like new products. Europeans are more” — Dierselhuis paused, wrinkled up his face and shook it back and forth in a mock look of skeptical derision — ‘Will it or won’t it?’ They wait.”