What is ‘Tick Tock’?
The term ‘Tick Tock’ has been referred to a music group from Puerto Rico, a novel by Dean Koontz, a fictional character in Marvel Comics Universe and even a dance step, but did you know it is the name of Intel’s go-to-market strategy as well.
The global economic downturn hit the semiconductor industry bad. And for a company like Intel which wants to push the latest technology at a rapid pace, it’s go-to-market strategy is even more critical in a downturn.
A few years ago, Intel was lagging behind competitor Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on multicore technology. Intel wanted to speed up innovation by lowering product development cycles, flawless product road map execution and meeting yearly targets. The company laid put a new plan. They called the new strategy "tick-tock." The company’s CEO, Paul Otellini backed and also led the new strategy.
‘Tick’ refers to various improvements to Intel’s silicon fabrication process. E.g. doubling of the number of transistors on integrated circuits.
‘Tock’ is a more recently quantified process. E.g. architectural upgrades made to the client and server processors.