Intel Corp., the world’s largest maker of microprocessors, has disclosed several details concerning its project code-named Larrabee. Apparently, the latter, despite of certain media reports, has no direct relation to Intel’s graphics processing unit’s development, but is a part of Intel’s Tera-Scale initiative, under which the company develops chips for special-purpose computing.
Intel’s code-named Larrabee processor, which seems to be an array of computational arithmetic logic units (ALUs) with caches as well as memory controller, will be capable of processing “well in excess” of a teraflop of data, according to Justin Rattner, Intel Corp.’s chief technology officer. The processor is set for release in 2010, but could show up in 2009, Mr. Rattner is quoted to have said, InformationWeek web-site reports.
Even though the code-named Larrabee processor can compute 3D graphics, just like any other modern microprocessor via ray-tracing technology, it is not designed for computing traditional Direct3D or OpenGL computer graphics and is not a graphics processing units, such as ATI Radeon or Nvidia GeForce.
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