(
Single
Instruction stream
Multiple
Data stream) The instruction execution architecture of a vector processor (a CPU or GPU that performs one operation on multiple sets of data simultaneously). SIMD is typically used to add or multiply eight or more sets of numbers at the same time for multimedia encoding and rendering as well as scientific applications. Hardware registers are loaded with numbers, and the mathematical operation is performed on all registers simultaneously. Contrast with
SISD and
MIMD. See
AVX and
GPU.