| 摘要 |
The present invention provides an apparatus and method for processing data using a multiplying circuit for performing a multiplication of a W/2 bit data value by a W bit data value. An instruction decoder is provided which is responsive to a multiply instruction to control the multiplying circuit to generate a multiplication result for the computation MxN, where M and N are W bit data words. The multiplying circuit is arranged to execute a first operation in the which the data word N is multiplied by the most significant W/2 bits of the data word M to generate a first intermediate result having 3W/2 bits, and to then execute a second operation in which the data word N is multiplied by the least significant W/2 bits of the data word M to generate a second intermediate result having 3W/2 bits. The first intermediate result is shifted by W/2 with respect to the second intermediate result and added to the second intermediate result to generate the multiplication result. By performing the two parts of the multiplication in reverse order to the conventional approach, it has been found that the complexity of the circuitry can be reduced, and a reduction in power consumption can be achieved.
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