Abstract: A digital signal processor (DSP) includes a SIMD-based organization wherein operations are executed on a plurality of single-instruction multiple data (SIMD) datapaths or stages connected in cascade. The functionality and data values at each stage may be different, including a different width (e.g., a different number of bits per value) in each stage. The operands and destination for data in a computational datapath are selected indirectly through vector pointer registers in a vector pointers datapath. Each vector pointer register contains a plurality of pointers into a register file of a computational datapath.