Patent ID: 8095354

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for estimating a power consumption peak, the method comprising: executing, using a primary processing unit, logical simulation on a netlist throughout a first time period to extract operation data of a gated clock for every predetermined section within the first time period; executing, using a secondary processing unit, logical simulation on the netlist throughout a narrowed section to extract signal waveform data for every clock cycles in the narrowed section, the narrowed section being composed of one or a plurality of sections in which the switching activity of the gated clock, which is obtained from the operation data extracted by the primary processing unit, is higher than the switching activity in other sections; and generating power consumption data corresponding to the clock cycles, from the signal waveform data extracted by the secondary processing unit, wherein the switching activity of the gated clock is subjected to weighting processing on the basis of a weighting coefficient allocated to a circuit to which the gated clock is supplied, wherein a first weighting coefficient, which is larger than a second weighting coefficient, is allocated to a first circuit when a power consumption for one operation of the first circuit in synchronization with a clock supplied to the first circuit is larger than a power consumption for one operation of the second circuit in synchronization with a clock supplied to the second circuit, the second weighting coefficient being allocated to the second circuit.