APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PERFORMING A SPLICE OPERATION

• Main Authors: STEPHENS, Nigel John, EAPEN, Jacob, EYOLE, Mbou
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 24.10.2024
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; PHYSICS

An apparatus and a method are provided for performing a splice operation, the apparatus having a set of vector registers and one or more control registers. Processing circuitry is arranged to execute a sequence of instructions including a splice instruction that identifies at least a first vector register and at least one control register. The first vector register stores a first vector of data elements having a vector length, and the at least one control register stores control data identifying, independently of the vector length, one or more data elements occupying sequential data element positions within the first vector of data elements. The processing circuitry is responsive to execution of the splice instruction to extract from the first vector each data element identified by the control data in the at least one control register, and to output the extracted data elements within a result vector of data elements that also contains data elements from a second vector. Since the control data in the at least one control register identifies the data elements to be extracted without reference to the vector length, this provides a great deal of flexibility as to how the data elements to be extracted may be selected within the first vector.