Simplification of Boolean functions is mainly used to reduce the gate count of a design. Less number of gates means less power consumption, sometimes the circuit works faster and also when number of gates is reduced, cost also comes down.

      Universal Gates

      Universal gates are the ones which can be used for implementing any gate like AND, OR and NOT, or any combination of these basic gates; NAND and NOR gates are universal gates. But there are some rules that need to be followed when implementing NAND or NOR based gates.

       Logic Gates

       A logic gate is an electronic circuit/device which makes the logical decisions. To arrive at this decisions, the most common logic gates used are OR, AND, NOT, NAND, and NOR gates. The NAND and NOR gates are called universal gates. The exclusive-OR gate is another logic gate which can be constructed using AND, OR and NOT gate.