A method and apparatus for recognizing a state machine in circuit design in a high-level IC description language. The present invention analyzes high-level IC description language code, such as VHDL and Verilog.RTM., of an IC design and extracts description information corresponding to a state machine. The description information can be, for example, the high-level IC description language code corresponding to the state machine, a state diagram of the state machine, a state table for the state machine, or other representation of the state machine. In one embodiment, the present invention identifies a set of one or more processes as defined by VHDL "process" statements. By identifying one or more clocked processes, one or more transition processes, and one or more output processes, the present invention provides a state machine summary to describe the state machine identified in the high-level IC description language code.