Very Long Instruction Word

(VLIW) Used to describe an {assembly language} {instruction

set} implemented using {horizontal microcode}. A horizontally

encoded instruction word which encodes four or more operations

might be considered "very long".

VLIW architectures are sometimes classified as a type of

static {superscalar} architecture. They are static in the

sense that which units operate in parallel is determined by

the instruction rather than by dynamic scheduling at run-time.

Producing code for VLIW machines is difficult; {trace

scheduling} is a helpful compiler technique.

The most famous VLIW machine was built by (the late)

{Multiflow Computer, Inc.}

(1994-11-11)