I-Zone is one of the most important events at Display Week, the Society for Information Display’s (SID’s) International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition. Display Week 2026 took place May 3-8, in Los Angeles, California; I-Zone was featured from May 5-7. See below for the best prototype and honoree winners from I-Zone at Display Week 2026.

I-Zone was created to provide a special exhibit area for technology prototypes, proofs of concept, and new products that have been on the market no more than six months prior to Display Week.

 

Selected companies/universities/institutions gain several key benefits:

 

  1. Free publicity: Show your new products and technology to the entire SID community.
  2. Expert feedback: Hear what I-Zone committee members – professionals with established track records in industry/academia – have to say about your technology.
  3. Free exhibit space: Demonstrate your prototype in the dedicated I-Zone area of the exhibit hall during SID’s Display Week Exhibition, June 8-10, 2027.

New: Applicants are strongly encouraged to consult the I-Zone FAQ before submitting

 

Key Deadlines for I-Zone Participants

 

December 1, 2026:  I-Zone nominations open

April 16, 2027:          Deadline for I-Zone applications

June 6-11, 2027:      Display Week 2026

June 8-10, 2027:      I-Zone exhibition

I-Zone applications will open in December 2026.

Before submitting your application, please make sure that:

Your product or technology represents a novel advancement that can be represented with a physical demonstration on the show floor.

Your product or technology is not on the market or at least will not be on the market before January 2027.

In addition to filling out the submission form, your entry should include:

A 100-word abstract describing your project, its innovation, and problem it is designed to solve or capability it will offer.

A one-page summary describing in more detail the novelty and potential application for your product.

Any relevant photographs, videos (no longer than 3 minutes), or diagrams. Note: links to videos or high-resolution imagery are preferred to attachments

For more information, email I-Zone@sid.org

Award
Winners

Best Prototype and Honorees at Display Week 2026

 

The 2026 Best Prototype winner at I-Zone was TriLite Technologies for its ultracompact laser-beam scanning projection engine

A 2026 honoree in the I-Zone was Metalenz for novel under-display polarization-based facial recognition and authentication technology

A 2026 honoree in the I-Zone was Myrias Optics for all-inorganic nanoimprint meta-optics with high RI contrast

A 2026 honoree in the I-Zone was PoLightFilters for novel polariton-based wide-angle optical filters

Award
Winners

Best Prototype and Honoree at Display Week 2025

 

The 2025 Best Prototype winner at I-Zone was Summit Technology Laboratory for its automatic projection mapping technology creating seamless 3D environments from multiple projects within minutes

A 2025 honoree in the I-Zone was Neural Lab for its XR interactive gesture control for any displays using only a webcam and software

A 2025 honoree in the I-Zone was Advanced Display Research Center (Kyung Hee University) for its spray-solution deposition technology

A 2025 honoree in the I-Zone was Ganzin Technology for its ultracompact eye-tracking system for AR/VR headsets and smart glasses

Award
Winners

Best Prototype and Honoree at Display Week 2024

 

The 2024 Best Prototype winner at I-Zone was Yongjiang Laboratory for its innovative human eye simulator that enables standardized characterization of eye tracking systems.

A 2024 honoree in the I-Zone was Elstar for its electrophoretic shutter technology with outstanding optical performance.

A 2024 honoree in the I-Zone was Looking Glass for its hyper-realistic 3D demo.

A 2024 honoree in the I-Zone was Q-Pixel for its 1-micron full-color microLED pixel. 

Best Prototype and Honoree at Display Week 2023

 

The 2023 Best Prototype winner at I-Zone was Sundiode, for its innovative vertically stacked RGB microLED pixel technology.

2023 honoree in the i-zone was Embodme, for its IR-based 3D sensing technology.

2023 honoree in the i-zone was Excyton, for its novel power-saving OLED pixel architecture and algorithm.

The 2023 I-Zone Special Mention Honoree was NHK, for its contribution to display industry standards using gamut rings. 

Best Prototype and Honoree at Display Week 2022

 

The 2022 Best Prototype winner at I-Zone was Porotech, for its innovative process for achieving color tuning in one monolithic InGaN layer.

The 2022 I-Zone Honoree is 6P Color, Inc., for its innovative algorithm to extract extended color space for multiprimary displays. 

Best Prototype and Honorees at Display Week 2021

Display Week 2021 was a fully virtual event. 2021 Best Prototype winners at I-Zone was Seoul National University for its new, thin and flat virtual-reality (VR) display design.

2021 Honorees in the I-Zone were:

Almalence for its computational lens aberration-correction technology for AR/VR.

Brelyon for its headset-free ultra-reality immersive virtual screen

Best Prototype and Honorees at Display Week 2020

Last year’s I-Zone took place as part of the first-ever virtual Display Week held in August 2020.

The 2020 Best Prototype winner at I-Zone was Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (Giga KOREA foundation) for its demonstration of innovative 1-micron TFT pixel design on glass for holographic display applications.

2020 Honorees in the I-Zone were:

CREAL for its light-field augmented-reality glasses.

Scrona AG for its NanoDrip additive printing process technology.

NS Nanotech for its NanoLED technology.

Best Prototype at Display Week 2019

Holst Centre for its highly transparent, thin-film biometric scanner integrated on top of a flat-panel display

The 2019 I-Zone honorees were:

Boréas Technologies for its low-power, multi-frequency haptic driver architecture suitable for mobile devices

LPKF Laser & Electronics AG for its novel laser-etching process enabling foldable display substrates

Sonavi Labs for its digital stethoscope with a unique integration of low-power display and touch technology with global life-changing implications

TouchNetix, Ltd. for its commercialization of multifunction IC that includes capacitive touch, force sensing, and haptic feedback

Best Prototype at Display Week 2018

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

The 2018 I-Zone honorees were:

Dimenco, founded in 2010 by former Philips engineers, showed its newest LC alignment layer for switchable lenses in the I-Zone

Hong Kong Beida Jade Bird Display Hong Kong Beida Jade Bird Display (JBD) showed an active-matrix microLED in a chip format with 5K pixels per inch and 1 million cd/m2of luminance (green rated at 500 lu, red rated at 300 lu, blue at 250 lu).

PlayNitride, Inc., created a transparent display using a unique process to transfer its RGB microLEDs onto the backplane substrate. The group showed a 3.12-in. diagonal 256 × 256 resolution, transparent, full-color RGB microLED display with a luminance of more than 800 cd/m2and a wide color gamut

XTPL SA has developed technology that enables ultraprecise printing of nanomaterials. According to the company, the XTPL solution allows users to repair interrupted thin conductive lines in the production stage, without complicated, slow, and expensive vacuum processes.

Best Prototype at Display Week 2017

IGM, University of Stuttgart, in partnership with Hella KGaA Hueck & Co.

The 2017 I-Zone honorees were:

Jasper Display Corporation and glō for a megapixel silicon backplane (4K × 2K) and spatial light modulator technology for microdisplays.

Turtle Beach and Nepes Display for HyperSound Glass, the world’s first highly directional and transparent parametric sp eaker.

Best Prototype at Display Week 2016

nVerpix Takes Best Prototype Honors in the I-Zone

Best Prototype at Display Week 2015

Ubiquitous Energy for its ClearView Power Energy Harvesting technology

Best Prototype at Display Week 2014

Ostendo Technologies for a novel Quantum Photonic Imager display device.

Best Prototype at Display Week 2013

Shinoda Plasma Co., Ltd., for a new film-type display using plasma tube arrays.

Best Prototype at Display Week 2012

Tactus Technology, for transparent physical buttons that rise up from a touchscreen surface on demand

I-Zone 2012 Participant Tactus Technology's VP of Business Development commented on their firm's experience as follows:

Tactus chose SID as the venue to launch our company. The event has a good mix of press, analysts, technologists and potential customers, so we thought it an ideal opportunity. We were very excited when we learned about the new I-Zone section of the show and were eager to apply for participation. Given that this was going to be our first show, the team was elated when we learned that we were selected as a participant.

The show was a non-stop flood of people. We made some very good new contacts, and also connected with companies with which we had already established relationships. The icing on the cake was when it was announced that we had won the best prototype award. It was very validating. We then had the opportunity to join the awards luncheon and be recognized with the likes of LG, Samsung and Qualcomm. Along with our launch at the show, we ramped up our PR efforts. We sent out our release the morning of the show and met with a few key reporters at the show to brief them on the announcement that we would be demoing at SID. The buzz just grew from there. Within the week, there were more than 150 articles written, more than 2.5 million people who read the news about us, and more than 1 million people who watched our product videoM. You can check the major news outlets that covered us from our website: http://www.tactustechnology.com/news.html