Vacuum Expo 2012, held during Autumn at the Ricoh Arena Coventry, proved a big draw for visitors and attracted 12 new exhibitors to the biggest and best event in the series to date, according to organiser Xmark Media.
Reports from the show floor indicated an increase in numbers from European and international visitors who were mainly there to do business, while many exhibitors said they had an excellent event with increased prospect numbers and plenty of high quality discussions taking place on their stands. Post show analysis has confirmed this visitor growth to be 30%.
Vacuum Expo organiser Laurence Devereux said: : "I'm convinced that exhibitions will always be popular when there is a strong, high quality technical programme run in parallel which is offered free to all attendees. This is the winning formula for a UK event. We are very grateful to the people who have contributed to the Vacuum Symposium and have worked tirelessly to put together the excellent scientific sessions. It is good for the UK to be the host to a meeting of this calibre."
The ‘Thin Films’ meeting programme was led by Hayley Brown of Plasma Quest and the University of Surrey. It focused on metal oxides and optical thin films. There was also a one-day ‘Vacuum and Plasmas for Industry’ meeting opened by Niall Macgearailt from Intel, Ireland, with a talk on the "Plasma Process Control in the Semiconductor Industry." He described the challenges of volume production world-wide and keeping control of the plasma processes to keep the yield high and the production line moving.
