Opcode counting for performance measurement

A system for measuring a performance of a program, the system comprising one or more processing units configured for:

• running said program;
• informing a logic unit of each instruction in the program that is executed by the processing unit;
• assigning a weight to said each instruction;
• assigning each of the instructions to one of a plurality of first groups;
• combining the first groups of the instructions into one or more second groups of the instructions;
• for each of the second groups of the instructions, maintaining a performance count based on a number of times the instructions in said each second group of the instructions are executed and the weights assigned to the instructions in said each second group;
• and
• analyzing the performance count of said each of the second groups of the instructions to measure one or more metrics of the program.

A system for measuring a performance of a program, the system comprising one or more processing units configured for:

• running said program;
• informing a logic unit of each instruction in the program that is executed by the processing unit;
• assigning a weight to said each instruction;
• assigning the instructions to a plurality of groups;
• and
• analyzing said plurality of groups to measure one or more metrics of the program;
• and
• wherein said running includes running the program on a specific one of the processing units, and the informing includes said specific one of the processing unit informing the logic unit of said each instruction in the program that is executed by the processing unit.

An article of manufacture comprising:

• at least one tangible non-transitory computer readable device having computer readable program code logic tangibly embodied therein to execute machine instructions in one or more processing units for measuring a performance of a program running on a processing unit of a processing system, the method comprising:
• informing a logic unit of each instruction in the program that is executed by the processing unit;
• assigning a weight to said each instruction;
• assigning each of the instructions to one of a plurality of first groups;
• combining the first groups of the instructions into one or more second groups of the instructions;
• for each of the second groups of the instructions, maintaining a performance count based on a number of times the instructions in said each second group of the instructions are executed and the weights assigned to the instructions in said each second group;
• and
• analyzing the performance count of said each of the second groups of the instructions to measure one or more metrics of the program.

A method of measuring a performance metric of a program running on a processing unit of a processing system, the method comprising:

• informing a logic unit of each instruction in the program that is executed by the processing unit;
• assigning a weight to said each instruction;
• assigning, by said logic unit, each of the instructions to one of a plurality of first groups;
• combining, by said logic unit, the first groups of the instructions into one or more second groups of the instructions;
• for each of the second groups of the instructions, maintaining, by said logic unit, a performance count based on a number of times the instructions in said each second group of the instructions are executed and the weights assigned to the instructions in said each second group;
• and
• analyzing the performance count of said each of the second groups of the instructions to determine the number of times the program executes a specified operation.