Exclusive: Escape from the slow lane

Speed – and staying close to the customer – is the key to commercialising new materials for electronics. But you can’t do this in Europe, says Thomas Geelhaar, head of R&D at Merck Chemicals.

Thomas Geelhaar, Head of Chemicals R&D, has been with Merck Chemical’s R&D division since 1984. He has worked in polymer, liquid-crystal and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) research, and served as the head of business development for Chemicals.

Now, as the company’s Chief Technology Officer for Chemicals, Geelhaar is involved in all materials science research topics such as organic electronics and solid-state lighting. He spoke exclusively to Science|Business.

What is your overall R&D budget for chemicals?

The budget for chemicals R&D is roughly €140 million. This covers research in the two divisions – liquid crystals and life science chemicals, as well as long-term projects like organic electronics and nanotechnology.

Tell me more about the R&D phase focused on customer-oriented applications.  

Once the project becomes more concrete, we need customer cooperation rather than university cooperation.

We have many such partners because of our success in liquid crystals. This gives us the chance to develop similar cooperative projects in OLED’s or inorganic electronics. I’d call this the second phase of R&D. Finally, we try to bring real products into the fast-changing market, such as electronics and displays.

Are universities involved in the second phase of R&D in any way?

Once we have prototype materials, we go into countries where our customers are located such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The basic research for new materials is done in the central research lab in Darmstadt, where we have 200 to 250 people working in liquid crystals and OLED. In Asia, researchers formulate, mix and modify the materials we develop here. Our Asian colleagues then characterise the materials to develop a solution for a specific customer and application, such as a liquid-crystal display.

Here it’s important to be fast, be close to the customer and have a fast feedback loop for modifications. We want to create the best single product in close cooperation with the customer. This is how we bring to market the technology developed in cooperation with universities. In this phase, speed, speed, speed is key.

Is it possible to have this relationship with customers in European Union–funded projects?

We have one key person who is active in lobbying in Germany and at the EU. He pushes and coordinates the project in the company. We try to see if our internal projects fit with what is being funded.

Nowadays, you always find the partners of the value chain involved in the project. For instance, we did a project on organic light emitting diodes (OLED) with the light bulb manufacturer Osram. We have access to the customer and sometimes to the customer’s customer.

For a project in the automotive industry, we work with the component manufacturer and carmaker. That is the benefit of such funded projects.

What are some of your major frustrations in getting your ideas to market?

The German and even the European electronics industry is either disappearing or not interested in many topics any more, such as mobile phones, notebook displays or TV manufacturing. All these activities are no longer possible in Europe or Germany. Everything is done in Asia by big companies that are not risk-shy.

The innovative culture and attitude is in the western universities, but the economic power and the entrepreneurial risk-taking is strong in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

Asian companies invest in the factories, but the technology has to keep developing, so the transfer of ideas has to happen and the start-ups are still here – in the UK, in Israel in the United States.

Maybe frustration is not the right word. It’s more of an observation. I’ve got a big question mark here. Why don’t European electronics companies take the step now? There are European companies that are big in electronics, but not for components.

Outside of Japan, do you have cooperation agreements with universities in Asia?

Yes, of course. We have partners in Korea. In Korea, the electronics company Samsung was a technology follower 15 years ago. Now it’s the leading company, not only in the various components, but in the end products.

That is again triggering the next wave of strong cooperation between companies and universities, and therefore the universities in Korea are becoming more important.

So, in Asia, it’s the companies that initiate cooperation with the universities and not the other way around?

Yes, the companies are so strong and so powerful that they have even built small cities for the product lines. The factories and cities are built in a field somewhere. The companies train and educate the staff. This is very impressive. I think this is something you will not find in many other places around the world.

Any other observations about your job of bringing ideas to market?

The satisfying experience in chemistry R&D is designing next-generation applications within a year and sometimes within a few months.

You find something new, you scale it up, you bring it into the application lab and then it’s in the next generation of mobile phones. Every quarter, we have developed a new generation of materials for mobile phones with lower power consumption and better picture quality. This is exciting.