Functional Safety is a growing concern, especially for industrial systems. To meet Functional Safety standards according to IEC 61508, systems must be designed for Safety Integrity Levels (SIL). Developing programmable devices such as Complex Programmable Logic Devices (CPLD) or Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) under SIL, however, is a very young discipline.
Dornier Consulting has started first common activities with the Silicon Valley based emerging technology company Missing Link Electronics in the areas of automotive and avionic. In a survey on in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems new technology trends and implications like such of Mobile Internet Devices (MID) and related architectures were analyzed. One result: today’s open source economies enable generally reduced development and licensing costs along with increased functionalities and quality compared to proprietary alternatives. Future IFE will stand out by decentralized architecture applying so-called “components of the shelf” and open source technologies. Opportunities will add up regarding weight reduction up to 60% as well as reduction in energy consumption up to 70% compared to current systems.
MID provide the opportunity of the reduction in weight, energy and cost for in-flight entertainment systems. These MID integrate Open Source software like GNU/ Linux or Android with modern processing devices such as OMAP from Texas Instruments or the Zynq Extensible Processing Platform (EPP) from Xilinx. MID integration makes it possible to provide data, information and movies on-demand through the use of cloud computing and peer-to-peer networks.
Missing Link Electronics’ patent pending Industrial Android technology allows to interface a consumer Android system with safety-critical real-time automotive, aerospace or industrial systems. For more information of Missing Link Electronics’ solutions please follow this link.
“The technology start-up Missing Link Electronics has become a Dornier Consulting partner because of their in-depth insight into this fast moving field of electronics technology. Having a strong representation in the Silicon Valley, Missing Link Electronics is always close to the latest technology trends and developments like Android, multi-core processing and reconfigurable systems. Through the company location in Ulm/ Neu-Ulm this up-to-date information is available on site as well”
says Frank Döttling, Dipl. oec., MBA, Managing Director DornierConsulting Engineering & Services GmbH Sindelfingen, General Manager Automotive and Aerospace. Frank Döttling is an expert in innovation management and member of the advisory board of the German Aerospace Academy.
Having started 2010 the partnership between Dornier Consulting and Missing Link Electronics was established to intensify the further development of in-flight-entertainment systems as well as automotive testing.
Dornier Consulting is an innovative consulting and engineering partner for driving sustainable metropolitan and mobility solutions. Dornier Consulting’s portfolio covers telematics, systems integration, infrastructure, energy and water supply as well as traffic management. In doing so, the company serves its clients from business concepts to implementation. The in-depth technological expertise combined with broad business know-how leads to long-term sustainable results.
Seit 2008 besteht die enge Partnerschaft zwischen CAD-UL (seit Januar 2021: Elemaster GmbH) und Missing Link Electronics. Dabei entwickelt, konstruiert und fertigt CAD-UL elektronische Baugruppen, auf deren Basis Missing Link Electronics Embedded Systeme realisiert werden.
Analog I/O within a digital FPGA device? Mixed-Signal solutions by MLE can make it happen! The Mixed-Signal FPGA Development Kit for Altera Cyclone IV allows efficient evaluation of MLE’s „soft” ADC and DAC technology and is now available. Read more
Our Partners
Missing Link Electronics, Inc. (MLE) was founded in 2010 by a group of seasoned business experts and technologists. Since then, MLE has been gaining reputation as an emerging technology company which develops and markets dependable solutions for the realization of connected embedded systems. To de-risk and to accelerate customer design projects we have been working closely with various partners:
MLE is a Premier Member of the AMD Adaptive Compute Program. As such MLE passed a comprehensive review by AMD of technical, business, quality, and support processes and will continue to commit engineers to passing the same rigorous training used by AMD Field Application Engineer worldwide.
MLE is Gold Member of Intel’s Partner Alliance (former Design Solutions Network / Altera’s Design Service Network) offering FPGA design services to customers located in North America and Europe.
MLE is a Lattice partner providing FPGA Design Services and IP Cores that simplify and accelerate the deployment of Lattice FPGAs. By combining MLE’s optimized subsystems with Lattice’s low-power, mid-range FPGAs, customers gain a streamlined path to robust solutions in communications, computing, industrial, and automotive applications.
Microchip Technology Inc. is a leading provider of smart, connected and secure embedded control solutions. Its easy-to-use development tools and comprehensive product portfolio enable MLE to create optimal designs, which reduce risk while lowering total system cost and time to market.
Trenz Electronic GmbH is a fellow member of the AMD Adaptive Compute Program. The combination of leading edge, high-quality FPGA and System-on-Modules from Trenz and FPGA Design Services, IP Cores and Full System Stacks from MLE significantly reduces development costs and risks for any FPGA user, novice or experienced.
Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institute has partnered with MLE since 2014 to market and commercialize IP Cores and Test and Measurement solutions for networking and wireless communication.
MLE partners with Fraunhofer IPMS on Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) and Deterministic Networking (DetNet) for high-speed 10/25/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet.
Since 2010, MLE is working with ASICS World Services on FPGA-based Storage IP core integration. ASICS World Services, a Xilinx Alliance Partner, provides a broad line of general-purpose IP cores for ASIC & FPGA.
Elemaster Germany, former CAD-UL Electronic Services GmbH in Ulm, and MLE have a successful history of delivering FPGA-based Turnkey Systems for Automotive, Aerospace, Defense and Test & Measurement applications. Close proximity enables both teams to respond very shortly to customer’s special needs.
In close collaboration with E2MS partner PRO DESIGN, MLE offers complete, integrated turnkey solutions including hardware / PCB design and manufacturing, systems / software / FPGA development and test.
Opsero is a hardware design partner in the FPGA ecosystem who develops abd markets high-speed FMC adapter boards and other high-performance electronic hardware for FPGA applications.
Knowledge Resources is another fellow member of the Xilinx Partner program located in Basel, Switzerland. KR offers System-on-Modules (SoM) for Zync-7000,Zync UltraScale+ MPSoC and RFSoC which are ideal hardware platforms for MLE’s extensive range of IP cores and subsystem / software solutions.
MLE is member of the Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) which is an association of 700+ industry companies committed to advancing its non-proprietary peripheral component interconnect (PCI) technology.
MLE is extending its Robo/TSN patented and patent pending technology to provide industrial, medical, and robotics networking solutions combining high-accuracy time-synchronization with high data rates of 100 Gbps, and faster to interface with and tunnel of EtherCAT.
MLE is actively contributing to the Open Source software ecosystem with a special focus on FPGA-based acceleration for Power and ARM architectures.
Missing Link Electronics, Inc. (MLE) was founded in 2010 by a group of seasoned business experts and technologists. Since then, MLE has been gaining reputation as an emerging technology company which develops and markets dependable solutions for the realization of connected embedded systems.
Management Team
Endric Schubert, PhD
Co-Founder & CTO
Dr. Endric Schubert is an experienced technologist and entrepreneur in the field of electronic and semiconductor design. His background includes software engineering, FPGA technology, Reconfigurable Computing and Embedded Systems design. He worked in the Advanced Technology Group at Exemplar Logic, at Axis Systems, at Aristo Technology Inc. and later co-founded Bridges2Silicon, Inc. and ESIC-Solutions. He has authored various technical publications, is inventor of several patents and holds lectures on electronic system design.
Endric holds an Electrical Engineering degree (Dipl.-Ing.) from University of Karlsruhe, Germany and a PhD degree from University of Tübingen, Germany. He is an honorary professor at the University of Ulm, Germany where he researches and teaches electronic system design.
Robert Barker
COO
Robert (Bob) Barker is an experienced executive manager with many years in the semiconductor and software industries. He has worked for large and small companies; including Philips, Xilinx, and Mentor Graphics. He was responsible for introducing some of the most successful FPGA Design Creation tools Galileo and Leonardo to the market at Exemplar Logic prior to its acquisition by Mentor Graphics. He has a sustained track record with start up companies and as an employee and as a consultant has helped several companies achieve success, including Blackstone Technology Group and Future Design Automation. He has co-authored two patents.
Bob has a BSEE from California State Polytechnic University, SLO.
Christian Grumbein
Director Engineering
Christian Grumbein is Director Engineering at Missing Link Electronics where he coordinates and leads MLE’s design service teams. Chris is a Xilinx Certified Engineer and has developed FPGA systems and solutions in the areas of mixed-signal, high-speed serial IO, PCI Express and embedded Linux.
When not working on on FPGAs, he practices and teaches martial arts.
Chris holds a degree in Electrical Engineering (Dipl.-Ing.) from the University of Ulm, Germany.
Ulrich Langenbach
Director Engineering
Ulrich Langenbach is Director Engineering at Missing Link Electronics where he coordinates and leads MLE’s development initiatives. Prior to MLE he was with Fraunhofer HHI where he worked on high-performance heterogeneous systems, e.g. in the field of network processing and protocol acceleration. Ulrich is a guest researcher at Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin and has co-authored various technical publications about network protocols and FPGA based systems.
Ulrich holds a degree in Computer Engineering (Dipl.-Ing.) from TU-Berlin, Germany.
Andreas Schuler
Director Applications
Andreas Schuler is Director Applications at Missing Link Electronics where he coordinates joint work of Xilinx and MLE. His field of operation reaches over Architecture design, Image processing, Security, Neural Networks to product development.
Andreas Schuler holds a degree in Industrial Electronics (B.Eng.) from Ulm University of Applied Sciences, Germany.
Yi-Ying Li (Sandy)
Director Technology Solutions
Yi-Ying Li (Sandy) is Director Technology Solutions at Missing Link Electronics where she coordinates joint work of Trenz and MLE. Her fields of operation reaches over market development and marketing.
Yi-Ying Li holds a degree in Tricontinental Master Program in Global Studies (MSc.) from Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences in Germany, National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan, and University of Monterrey in Mexico.
Ewald Detjens
Technology Advisor
Ewald Detjens has worked in semiconductors, computers, EDA, alternative energy, medical imaging, and machine learning. He is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and has advised many startups. He was the founder and CEO of Exemplar Logic, the first company to do logic synthesis for FPGAs. Exemplar was acquired by Mentor Graphics. He has an AB in Computer Science and a MS in EECS from UC Berkeley.
Jim Peek
Technology Advisor
Jim Peek is an experienced entrepreneur and technologist in electronic systems design from chips to large database servers. Jim worked for many years at one of Silicon Valley’s largest computer companies (Sun Microsystems) as well as other companies as engineer, designer, manager, business developer, and corporate development manager. Jim has worked on the design of general purpose micro-processors (RISC), graphics and floating point processors (Weitek), and was an architect in the area of multiprocessor systems (both SMP and Parallel Processor Systems, Pyramid Technology MIS & MESH) and fault resilient systems (Sun Clusters). He started a company that built some of the first large caches for micro-processors (RISC Systems). He later worked at other startups building storage systems, most recently at Fusion-io as Strategic Marketing Director and later in a similar position at Bay Storage Technology, prior to coming to MLE.
Jim holds BSEE & MSEE degrees from UC Berkeley.
MLE’s Embedded Cloud Computing solutions will be presented at the DESIGN & ELEKTRONIK Entwicklerforum in Session 2 “Configurable Microcontroller Solutions to Counter Obsolescence” and Session 8 “Optimizing Latency in Embedded Cloud Computing”.
MLE’s Configurable Systems design and verification will be presented in two presentations in Session 6: “ASSPs selbst bauen: Zynq machts möglich” and “Die virtuelle Plattform: Der Einsatz von Zynq für die Verifikation und das Debugging von konfigurierbaren Systemen” at the Konferenz für ARM-Systementwicklung.
