METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR EFFICIENT LOADING AND STORING OF VECTORS

A method and apparatus for loading and storing vectors from and to memory, including embedding a location identifier in bits comprising a vector load and store instruction, wherein the location identifier indicates a location in the vector where useful data ends. The vector load instruction further includes a value field that indicates a particular constant for use by the load/store unit to set locations in the vector register beyond the useful data with the constant. By embedding the ending location of the useful date in the instruction, bandwidth and memory are saved by only requiring that the useful data in the vector be loaded and stored.