The Composer is part of Intel Parallel Studio, a suite of tools Intel said will enable developers to write programs for parallel computing. Intel Parallel Studio extends parallelism to Microsoft's Visual Studio application development suite by supplying new features in the C and C++ compiler and by extending the debugger, among other features.

Programs developed with Intel Parallel Studio will be able to migrate to machines that carry the Larrabee chip, the company said. The Studio is available in beta through May 2009 at Intel's .

Larrabee chips will include many cores and combine processing capabilities of GPUs with the x86 architecture, improving application and graphics performance. The chip will also include support for multiple APIs (application programming interfaces) including OpenGL and DirectX, allowing the chip to run existing games and software.

However, transferring Larrabee-specific programs to other platforms -- like gaming consoles -- could be a problem. Intel is trying to offset that with plans to support more software environments, and it is working with companies like Apple to develop programming tools.

As more multithreaded cores are added to computers, Intel and Microsoft are jointly investing in universities and other efforts to encourage programmers to take advantage of parallel programming, Kircos said. Both the companies earlier this year committed US$20 million to research centers in the University of California, Berkeley and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign to promote software design in multicore computing over the next five years.