A method to reduce idle leakage power in I/O pins of an integrated circuit using external circuitry. Initially, I/O pins on a package are subdivided into those that will also remain powered up and those that will power down during idle state. When a system enters a low power mode, a signal is sent to the external circuitry. The signal notifies the I/O pins that always remain powered up to notify the external circuitry to power down the other set of I/O pins.