By Agam Shah
Although Intel delayed its first stand-alone graphics processor, code-named Larrabee, the company could use elements of the chip’s design and architecture in future products, analysts said on Monday.
Intel on Friday delayed the commercial release of Larrabee, which was due to become available next year, as the company fell behind in the processor’s development. Intel said it is committed to delivering the graphics chip and will discuss further plans next year, but would initially offer Larrabee as a software platform for high-performance applications. It will launch samples of Larrabee for developers next year, along with tools to let them write and test applications for it.
“This is not the end of Larrabee as a graphics processor — this is a pause,” said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, a market research firm specializing in graphics cards, in a blog entry. The next version of Larrabee could be offered as a co-processor that could work along with CPUs for faster processing of high-performance computing applications, Peddie said.
