Patent ID: 7051300

Claim:
A method comprising: an architecture simulation model processing an application trace, wherein said architecture simulation model is configured to model operation of an integrated circuit; in response to said processing, said architecture simulation model generating a given one of a plurality of energy events, wherein each of said plurality of energy events corresponds to an aspect of the operation of said integrated circuit that consumes energy; in response to said generating a given energy event, mapping said given energy event to one or more corresponding ones of a plurality of power models, wherein each of said plurality of power models hierarchically instantiates one or more of a plurality of base-level energy models, and hierarchically evaluating each of said one or more of said corresponding ones of said plurality of power models to identify each instantiated one of said plurality of base-level energy models; for each given one of said instantiated ones of said plurality of base-level energy models, evaluating said given instantiated base-level energy model to estimate energy associated with activation of said given instantiated base-level energy model for said given energy event; and accumulating said energy in a power estimate corresponding to said given energy event.