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instruction set extension

An optional group of extra instructions that some chips of a family provide and others don't, so a program must check before using them.

An instruction set extension is an optional, named addition to an instruction set architecture (x86-64 SSE4.2, AVX2, AVX-512; ARM64 LSE, SVE; RISC-V M, F, D, C, V); a processor reports which extensions it implements, and executing an instruction from one it lacks raises an illegal-instruction exception.

See also

AVX-512 microarchitecture
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