A system and method for data processing includes packing multiple signed
data elements per register into a processor's registers using the rules
set forth herein, and simultaneously operating on the elements in a
register in a single cycle using the same operand. The elements can be
independent of each other, and the sizes of the elements in a register can
differ from each other. Moreover, a relatively large element can be split
across multiple registers. In an exemplary application, a data stream
representing two images can be simultaneously processed using the same
number of registers as have been required to process a single image. Or, a
single image can be processed approaching N-times faster, where N is the
number of elements per register. In any case, the present invention
results in a significant increase in processing efficiency.
