3 ms·

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

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.

3 ms·

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

by 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.