System with wide operand architecture, and method

In a system having a data path functional unit having a functional unit data path width, a first memory system having a first data path width, and a second memory system having a data path width which is greater than the functional unit data path width and greater than the first data path width, a system comprising:

• a first copying module configured to copy a first memory operand portion from the first memory system to the second memory system, the first memory operand portion having the first data path width;
• and
• a second copying module configured to copy a second memory operand portion from the first memory system to the second memory system, the second memory operand portion having the first data path width and being catenated in the second memory system with the first memory operand portion, thereby forming catenated data.

In a system having a data path functional unit having a functional unit data path width, a first memory system having a first data path width, and a second memory system having a data path width which is greater than the functional unit data path width and greater than the first data path width, a system comprising:

• a first copying module configured to copy a first memory operand portion from the first memory system to the second memory system, the first memory operand portion having the first data path width;
• and
• a second copying module configured to copy a second memory operand portion from the first memory system to the second memory system, the second memory operand portion having the first data path width.

A method of processing a data stream in a general purpose processor capable of operation independent of another host processor, the general purpose processor having a virtual memory addressing unit, an instruction path and a data path to digitally process the data stream, the method comprising:

• receiving the data stream over the data path;
• dynamically partitioning the data stream based on an elemental width of the data and storing partitioned data in registers of a register file coupled to the data path, wherein a number of data elements stored in a register is inversely related to the elemental width of the data stored in partitioned fields of the register;
• performing group floating point operations on multiple operands stored in partitioned fields of registers and, for each group floating point operation, returning catenated results of the operation to a register.