Intel Larrabee Only Mostly Dead

In early 2009, there was lots of talk about the Intel Larrabee architecture that combined the CPU and GPU onto one chip. The theory of the device sounded good and both NVIDIA and ATI were doing something similar with GPGPUs at the time. Intel had originally planned the Larrabee platform to launch sometime this year, but that was changed in December 2009 when reports that the whole program was axed came in.

At the time, the reason cited by sources for the program stoppage was that the silicon and software development for the GPU had not met Intel expectations and the fear was Larrabee would not be able to compete with ATI and NVIDIA offerings. A new source claiming to be an engineer at Intel associated with the Larrabee project has now stepped forward.

According to the anonymous source, the Larrabee program has been postponed and may even be dead. However, the source also claims that Intel is still working on the project and a roadmap is in place for a launch. Apparently, Intel isn't sure at this point if it will launch Larrabee or not.