MENT to explode¿

Crytek's recent presentation at the High Performance Graphics Conference 2010 was released June 30, 2010, yet a Larrabee 2 is listed under "What’s the next generation of consoles?". Larrabee seems to be quite popular for a technology that's supposed to be dead.

Upon the discovery of the nuanced Larrabee 2 name from Crytek's presentation, I was lead to KitGuru's May 15, 2010 article, where 1 of their employee recalls chatters of Mentor Graphics, Intel, Larrabee, and "Mentor Graphics developed Calibre InRoute to support manufacturing closure for advanced node designs" at a pub.

Somehow with just that information, KitGuru concludes, "Intel seems to have completed its internal analysis of the failings of Larrabee v1, created a completely revised strategy and product definition for Larrabee v2 and, most importantly, begun shopping for the tools necessary to design and deliver a world class, discrete graphics solution.".

But the conclusion is very similar to what Charlie Demerjian wrote on May 17, 2010, "That brings us to Larrabee 2, basically a refresh and cleanup of Larrabee 1. Tie up loose ends, optimize what they could, and fix whatever low hanging fruit that remained... Larrabee 3 was going to be a big bang. Intel learned a lot with Larrabee 1, but too late incorporate any of it in Larrabee 2.".

So I'm researching Mentor Graphics, and MENT is coincidentally at a 52-week high today, much thanks to famed hedge fund honcho Carl Icahn. Financial analysis aside, Low-Power Engineering in late 2009 interviewed a chap from Mentor, who let slip that, "by 2011 it [Larrabee] will have 4 billion gates and 128 cores.".

Based upon the KitGuru pub chat, Charlie's subsequent corroboration, and legendary investor Icahn's approval, I expect MENT to blow up pretty soon. If not, at least it's another tea leaf into the viability of Larrabee.