MICRO-OP FUSION FOR NON-ADJACENT INSTRUCTIONS

Method(s) for up/down fusion and/or pseudo-fusion of micro-operations are performed in a hardware processor configured to execute program code. A mergeable pair of micro-operations is identified in a sequence of micro-operations of the program code. The pair of micro-operations includes a first micro-operation for performing a first function and a non-consecutive second micro-operation for performing a second function. The first micro-operation precedes the second micro-operation in the sequence of micro-operations being processed. The first micro-operation is merged into the second micro-operation to create a third micro-operation which performs both the first function and the second function. In up/down fusion the third micro-operation is dispatched instead of the first micro-operation or instead of the second micro-operation, based on whether fuse-up or fuse-down is performed. In pseudo-fusion the first micro-operation is retained in the sequence of micro-operations and the second micro-operation is replaced with the third micro-operation.