For use in a wide-issue processor, a mechanism for, and method of,
conditionally executing instructions and a digital signal processor (DSP)
incorporating the mechanism or the method. In one embodiment, the
mechanism includes: (1) a conditional execution block state machine that
tags and generates link pointers for instructions located in a
conditional execution block and (2) conditional link pointer registers,
associated with stages in a pipeline of the processor, that contain and
cause the link pointers to move therethrough as the instructions located
in the conditional execution block move through the stages.