Patent ID: 7725745

Claim:
A method comprising: forming a plurality of pipeline orderings, each pipeline ordering comprising one of a sequential, a parallel, or a sequential and parallel combination of a plurality of stages of a pipeline; analyzing the plurality of pipeline orderings to determine a total power for each pipeline ordering, wherein determining the total power for each pipeline ordering comprises: for each stage, determining a duty cycle for the stage; determining a voltage duty cycle for the stage; determining a power for the stage based at least in part on the duty cycle and the voltage duty cycle; determining a duty cycle for each parallel combination for each stage; and determining a power for a memory and/or other shared resource to be used for each pipeline ordering based at least in part on the duty cycle for each stage and a memory and/or other shared resource bandwidth for each stage; and selecting one of the plurality of pipeline orderings based on the determined total power for each pipeline ordering.