According to the invention, a processing core (12) comprising a processing pipeline (100) having N-number of processing paths (56), each of which process instructions (54) on M-bit data words. In addition, the processing core (12) includes one or more register files (60), each preferably having Q-number of registers which are M-bits wide. Preferably, one of the Q-number of registers in at least one of the register files (60) is a program counter register dedicated to hold a program counter, and one of the Q-number of registers in at least one of the register files is a zero register dedicated to hold a zero value. In this manner, program jumps can be executed by adding values to the program counter in the program counter register, and memory address values can be calculated by adding values to the program counter stored in the program counter register or to the zero value stored in the zero register.