Power Gating Logic Cones

A system comprising:

• means for synthesizing logic for an integrated circuit (IC) design;
• means for identifying low switching nodes within the logic that switch less than a threshold;
• means for determining a potential power gating cone (PGC) based on the identified low switching nodes;
• means for determining a power gating logic expression for the potential PGC that includes a minimum set of inputs to the potential PGC that are least switching;
• means for determining whether energy savings using the power gating logic expression meets a criteria;
• and
• means for accepting the potential PGC in response to meeting the criteria.

A program product stored on a computer-readable medium, which when executed, power gates logic cones, the program product comprising:

• program code for synthesizing logic for an integrated circuit (IC) design;
• program code for identifying low switching nodes within the logic that switch less than a threshold;
• program code for determining a potential power gating cone (PGC) based on the identified low switching nodes;
• program code for determining a power gating logic expression for the potential PGC that includes a minimum set of inputs to the potential PGC that are least switching;
• program code for determining whether energy savings using the power gating logic expression meets a criteria;
• and
• program code for accepting the potential PGC in response to meeting the criteria.