KNL variant for NEURON?

[pramodskumbhar]

Needs to decide if it is good idea to add KNL variant to NEURON:

+++ b/packages/neuron/package.py
@@ -53,7 +53,6 @@ class Neuron(Package):
     variant('rx3d',          default=False, description="Enable cython translated 3-d rxd")
     variant('profile',       default=False, description="Enable Tau profiling")
     variant('coreneuron',    default=False, description="Patch hh.mod for CoreNEURON compatibility")
-    variant('knl',           default=False, description="Add KNL specific compiler flags")

     depends_on('flex',       type='build')
     depends_on('bison',      type='build')
@@ -150,9 +149,6 @@ class Neuron(Package):
         if self.spec.satisfies('%pgi'):
             flags += ' ' + self.compiler.pic_flag

-        if self.spec.satisfies('+knl') and self.spec.satisfies('%intel'):
-            flags += ' ' + '-xMIC-AVX512'

But what about other architectures? Power8? Better this should be handled at configure level?