A
data processing apparatus and method are provided for performing rearrangement operations. The
data processing apparatus has a
register data store with a plurality of registers, each register storing a plurality of data elements.
Processing circuitry is responsive to control signals to perform
processing operations on the data elements. An
instruction decoder is responsive to at least one but no more than N rearrangement instructions, where N is an odd plural number, to generate control signals to control the
processing circuitry to perform a rearrangement process at least equivalent to: obtaining as
source data elements the data elements stored in N registers of said
register data store as identified by the at least one re-arrangement instruction; performing a rearrangement operation to rearrange the
source data elements between a regular N-way interleaved order and a de-interleaved order in order to produce a sequence of result data elements; and outputting the sequence of result data elements for storing in the
register data store. This provides a particularly efficient technique for performing N-way interleave and de-interleave operations, where N is an odd number, resulting in high performance, low
energy consumption, and reduced register use when compared with known prior art techniques.