Intel employee: Larrabee will resurrect

An Intel employee who was a member of the Larrabee development team claims that the gpgpu has not yet been written off. Intel would have the luxury of releasing the product whenever it wanted and the project would rise from the ashes.

Reports surfaced in December of last year that Intel had dropped Larrabee. Although it was not literally stated, it became clear that plans to release a powerful gpgpu with x86 cores had been shelved and development had been halted. An Intel employee who was part of the development team explains now to Techeye that Intel had not communicated properly at the time and that it was incorrect to assume that Larrabee would never see the light of day. He also stated that if the chip had appeared as planned, “it would have changed the market.”

“There’s a whole plan for the product and the roadmap is still there,” the employee said, adding that “Intel has the luxury of being able to release stuff when it feels the time is right.” Intel had hired top people for Larrabee who would still be available and waiting for the project to come back online. According to the Larrabee developer, some ex-colleagues who were unhappy with the progress of the project leaked false information about the general purpose video chip. For example, there was a rumor that Intel had plans to use technology from Imagination Technologies to complete the development of Larrabee.