Method for finding multi-cycle clock gating

th An apparatus includes a multi-cycle clock gater and a circuit design updater. The multi-cycle clock gater generates multi-cycle gating groups of data latching devices of a circuit design. The circuit design updater updates the circuit design with selected multi-cycle gating groups. Each gating group is associated with a single gating function. For each gating group, data latching devices of 0level of the gating group are gated with the gating function and ith level data latching devices of the gating function are gated with ith latched versions of the gating function.