Patent ID: 8286120

Claim:
A method for characterizing leakage power of devices of an integrated circuit (IC) having devices, the method comprising: receiving, by a computing device, a specification of the IC; and forming, with the computing device, one or more groupings of the devices using the specification, wherein each selected group from the one or more groups is formed by: grouping an initial number of the devices into the selected group based on the specification; successively expanding the selected group to include additional ones of the devices that are either similar to the devices included in the selected group or within a predetermined distance or proximity to devices included in the select group; wherein the selected group is configured to allow a set of sparse equations to be used in conjunction with power measurements of the IC to determine leakage power characteristics of the devices; wherein the measurements are taken in response to input vectors applied to the IC, and correspond to the equations, solutions to which equations provide the leakage power characteristics of the devices; and wherein the one or more groupings of the devices are formed to increase sparseness of the set of equations.