Nanoveu granted patent covering non-maximum suppression in AI object detection

• Exclusively licensed to EMASS, Nanoveu’s ultra-low-power semiconductor division.
• The IP rights in the patent was co-invented by Dr Mohamed Sabry, the founder of EMASS
• Protects silicon mechanism behind ECS-DoT’s object detection efficiency
• Further filings planned across voice, motion and sensor fusion workloads

Advanced semiconductor, visualisation and materials sciences specialist Nanoveu (ASX: NVU) has received notification that a US patent has been granted by a  Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

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The patent covers dedicated accelerator circuitry for non-maximum suppression in AI object detection. The patent is assigned to NTU and exclusively licensed to EMASS, Nanoveu’s ultra-low-power semiconductor division.

Non-maximum suppression is the final stage in every AI object detection pipeline. It is conventionally run in software, where it consumes a disproportionate share of inference time and energy.

The patented innovation executes the same function in purpose-built silicon, removing a structural bottleneck in edge vision.

In peer-reviewed research underlying the patent, a hardware implementation of the approach reported speedups of up to 75 times over a software implementation of the same algorithm and 13.4 times over the prior state-of-the-art hardware accelerator, at comparable detection accuracy and at full-HD input resolutions.

The patented mechanism is implemented as a dedicated hardware acceleration module in the BLE-enabled next-generation 16nm ECS-DoT, which entered fabrication at TSMC in January 2026.

Vision is a core edge AI workload, and efficient object detection is what makes always-on operation practical for battery-powered devices. The grant supports ECS-DoT’s positioning in applications including smart cameras and doorbells, wearables such as smart glasses and AR/VR headsets, drones, and automotive sensing.

Founder of EMASS, Dr Mohamed Sabry, said object detection is where edge vision silicon wins or loses on power, and non-maximum suppression is the stage conventionally left to software.

“This patent covers executing it in dedicated hardware instead, and that module is built into our next generation 16nm silicon. The exclusive licence puts that mechanism in EMASS’s hands, and we intend to follow the same path from research to protected silicon across voice, motion and sensor fusion.”

The grant protects one workload within a substantially larger surface: ECS-DoT processes vision, audio and sensor data across the company’s target verticals.

Nanoveu has previously stated its intention to file multiple additional patent families covering its drone energy optimisation and flight control technology, and intends to pursue further filings across voice, motion and sensor fusion.

NVU was steady at 5.8¢ with a Mkt cap of $65.99M prior to markets opening.

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