A double indirect method of accessing a block of data in a register file
is used to allow efficient implementations without the use of specialized
vector processing hardware. In addition, the automatic modification of
the register addressing is not tied to a single vector instruction nor to
repeat or loop instructions. Rather, the technique, termed register file
indexing (RFI) allows full programmer flexibility in control of the block
data operational facility and provides the capability to mix non-RFI
instructions with RFI instructions. The block-data operation facility is
embedded in the iVLIW ManArray architecture allowing its generalized use
across the instruction set architecture without specialized vector
instructions or being limited in use only with repeat or loop
instructions. The use of RFI in a processor containing multiple
heterogeneous execution units which operate in parallel, such as VLIW or
iVLIW processors, allows for efficient pipelining of algorithms across
multiple execution units while minimizing the number of VLIW instructions
required.