Patent ID: 8028150

Claim:
A method for a plurality of processing elements in a multi-processing array to react uniquely and individually to a single control unit instruction obtained from a control unit, the control unit including a primary instruction decoder, the processing elements each including a secondary instruction decoder, said method comprising: decoding the single control unit instruction using the primary instruction decoder in the control unit to obtain control signals corresponding to the single control unit instruction, the control signals including original instruction control signals and relevant modifier control signals, the relevant modifier control signals for a particular processing element being separately determined based upon a grouping of the particular processing element and including operation control signals and operand control signals corresponding to the grouping for the particular processing element; sending the control signals to associated with each processing element to a corresponding secondary instruction decoder within each processing element, each secondary instruction decoder receiving the original instruction control signals and, for the particular processing element, the associated ones of the operation control signals and the operand control signals; and individually modifying the original instruction control signals sent from primary instruction decoder to each secondary instruction decoder according to the operation control signals and the operand control signals associated with each particular processing element, thereby causing each processing element to perform an operation corresponding thereto.