Michel A Rohner was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland. He earned Diploma in EE at ETH (Swiss Institute of Technology) in Zurich, Switzerland, and MSEE from Santa Clara University in CA. He worked for many years at Link Flight Simulation, designing the fastest 3D real time graphics computers. He has six important patents in the field of 3D computer graphics.
Michel is an ACM Member and IEEE lifetime member. He was a key designer and architect of the first Digital Image Generator (DIG) at Link flight Simulation. The DIG was a specialized computer generating 3D scenes to be used in aircraft simulators. Four Link DIG systems were delivered to NASA Houston Space Center for the Space Shuttle Mission Simulator (SMS). At the time of delivery, the Link DIG was the fastest real time Computer Image Generator (CIG) in the world. It could produce out of the windows images made of 3400 projected triangles at a rate of 60 times per sec. With a price tag of around $2M dollars, the DIG systems were not available to the general public. He continued working at Link, making improvement to the DIG. Within a period of 10 years, Link sold around 70 flight simulators with three window displays driven by DIG systems.
Later on, he was a key contributor for the designs of two 3D graphics chips for the PC market and a line of Quad TV encoders and decoders.