What makes it more than a tick?
You've got it backwards. Tock is new architecture, and tick is die shrink.With Intel, ticks generally mean "new architecture" tocks are "shrink that architecture and maybe improve a few things.
You've got it backwards. Tock is new architecture, and tick is die shrink.
I know; it makes no sense to me, either.
I know; it makes no sense to me, either.
It comes with Lyme disease?
LOL, seriously though this is the first I have officially heard/seen Intel use the term publicly but TuxDave referred to it the other day when he mentioned that Intel has gotten much more aggressive about squeezing more performance improvements out of their tick steps.
I'm going to guess that this is part of the explanation of why the dieseize for IB seemed to suggest poor shrink scaling at 22nm.
If the IB cores themselves are not simple shrinks of the existing SB cores but rather are beefier versions even still then it would explain why the die size is reduced only some 25% or thereabouts.
As to "what" the new special sauce is, exactly, that makes IB a "tick+" and have larger cores (more xtors per core than SB cores) we can safely assume there is a whole set of new ISA extensions coming, but it has to be more than that because Penryn was called a tick and it too included SSE4 extensions.
It comes with Lyme disease?
LOL, seriously though this is the first I have officially heard/seen Intel use the term publicly but TuxDave referred to it the other day when he mentioned that Intel has gotten much more aggressive about squeezing more performance improvements out of their tick steps.
I'm going to guess that this is part of the explanation of why the dieseize for IB seemed to suggest poor shrink scaling at 22nm.
If the IB cores themselves are not simple shrinks of the existing SB cores but rather are beefier versions even still then it would explain why the die size is reduced only some 25% or thereabouts.
As to "what" the new special sauce is, exactly, that makes IB a "tick+" and have larger cores (more xtors per core than SB cores) we can safely assume there is a whole set of new ISA extensions coming, but it has to be more than that because Penryn was called a tick and it too included SSE4 extensions.
IB die
SB die
just looking at wafer comparison, if the core were about the same, then the L3 has increased somewhat, and the IGP has increased lots.
Take the SB-E, take off two core's, keep the same Cache per core as SB-E, take off 2x 64-Bit IMC, take off some PCI-e lanes, install an IGP (16 EUs) produce it at 22nm and you could have Ivy Bridge.
Die shrink? What die shrink? That thing's huge! *runs off to buy a full tower*
IB die
Well, the size of a single copper atom is ~130pm (0.13nm). I don't know how close we can get to building structures from individual atoms, but I wouldn't say semiconductor scaling is done just yet.
Die shrink? What die shrink? That thing's huge! *runs off to buy a full tower*