3 ms·

They kind of do, eg, 65nm was introduced with Athlon X2 before they came out with Phenom, then the Phenom was shrunk to 45nm, etc. I've always seen tick tock as

They kind of do, eg, 65nm was introduced with Athlon X2 before they came out with Phenom, then the Phenom was shrunk to 45nm, etc. I've always seen tick tock as purely a marketing thing, although the 1 year goals may drive engineering somewhat. Interestingly, Intel is considering doing tick tock tock for 32nm.

hga 17y ago
Hmmm, I've never seen it as purely marketing, it seems to be very engineering oriented: Tick: Take an existing, known working and understood design and shrink it for the new process, using that to work out the kinks in the latter. Tock: Now that the new process is well understood, get a new design to work on it. Intel is probably in a better position to do this due to their very strong emphasis on manufacturing and their ability to solidly plan their spending on new fab lines and processes.
- reitzensteinm 17y ago
  I meant the whole 'tick tock' branding, so to speak - it seems to be marketing giving a name to something which engineering has been doing for sensible reasons for quite some time.
  - hga 17y ago
    I'm sorry, but I got the impression from your saying "although the 1 year goals may drive engineering somewhat" that the marketing was driving the engineering and not the reverse. I think that if you're doing something smart, something that shows how ... solid? reliable? your company is, something that's easily understood by most with an engineering background, and something your competitor can't do, why not make some hay from it?
    - reitzensteinm 17y ago
      Ah, sorry, I meant that the only real change seemed to be that they drew a line in the sand and said we'll do a tick or a tock each year. But even then, it hasn't exactly happened that way (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock), and they must have had goals like that internally anyway. I don't blame them for getting some marketing mileage out of it - just that I don't really see it as a very important change in terms of engineering. Although I'm just a casual observer of the industry so I may well be wrong about that.
      - hga 17y ago
        Very interesting. Clearly, it takes them more time to do a tick than a tock, and that makes sense, the big unknown unknowns are in moving to a new process. E.g. look at the reported fun with TMSC's 40nm process (iffy vias and excessive variation in transistor construction), with ATI negotiating the mess in two steps and nVidia failing to. Once you've done the tick, a new microarchitecture should be relatively easy, especially since you can simulate it ahead of time and towards the end do that in the light of what you've learn about the new process.

hga 17y ago

Hmmm, I've never seen it as purely marketing, it seems to be very engineering oriented: Tick: Take an existing, known working and understood design and shrink it for the new process, using that to work out the kinks in the latter. Tock: Now that the new process is well understood, get a new design to work on it. Intel is probably in a better position to do this due to their very strong emphasis on manufacturing and their ability to solidly plan their spending on new fab lines and processes.

reitzensteinm 17y ago
I meant the whole 'tick tock' branding, so to speak - it seems to be marketing giving a name to something which engineering has been doing for sensible reasons for quite some time.
- hga 17y ago
  I'm sorry, but I got the impression from your saying "although the 1 year goals may drive engineering somewhat" that the marketing was driving the engineering and not the reverse. I think that if you're doing something smart, something that shows how ... solid? reliable? your company is, something that's easily understood by most with an engineering background, and something your competitor can't do, why not make some hay from it?
  - reitzensteinm 17y ago
    Ah, sorry, I meant that the only real change seemed to be that they drew a line in the sand and said we'll do a tick or a tock each year. But even then, it hasn't exactly happened that way (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock), and they must have had goals like that internally anyway. I don't blame them for getting some marketing mileage out of it - just that I don't really see it as a very important change in terms of engineering. Although I'm just a casual observer of the industry so I may well be wrong about that.
    - hga 17y ago
      Very interesting. Clearly, it takes them more time to do a tick than a tock, and that makes sense, the big unknown unknowns are in moving to a new process. E.g. look at the reported fun with TMSC's 40nm process (iffy vias and excessive variation in transistor construction), with ATI negotiating the mess in two steps and nVidia failing to. Once you've done the tick, a new microarchitecture should be relatively easy, especially since you can simulate it ahead of time and towards the end do that in the light of what you've learn about the new process.