Wide shifting in the vector permute unit

A method of performing wide shift operations, comprising:

• transmitting a source operand for a wide shift operation to a crossbar capable of passing any source byte to any target byte and performing vector permute operations as well as a portion of wide shift operations;
• generating selects for the crossbar from a first portion of a shift amount to byte-wise shift the source operand to within a predetermined interval from the shift amount utilizing the crossbar;
• generating selects for a shifting mechanism at an output of the crossbar from a second portion of the shift amount to bit-wise shift the output of the crossbar;
• and
• shifting the output of the crossbar by an amount not greater than the predetermined interval.

A mechanism for performing wide shift operations, comprising:

• a crossbar receiving at least one source operand and passing any source byte within the at least one source operand to any target byte, wherein the crossbar performs vector permute operations as well as a portion of wide shift operations;
• decode logic generating selects for the crossbar from a first portion of a shift amount to byte-wise shift the at least one source operand to within a predetermined interval from the shift amount;
• a shifting mechanism shifting an output of the crossbar by an amount less than or equal to the predetermined interval;
• decode logic generating selects for the shifting mechanism from a second portion of the shift amount to bit-wise shift the output of the crossbar to the shift amount;
• a correction multiplexer employed for other operations performed utilizing the crossbar receiving an output of the shifting mechanism and generating an output.