I wrote about long nops in http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=25#82 http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=25#82 I had a private email thread

I wrote about long nops in http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=25#82 http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=25#82 I had a private email thread with H. Peter Anvin (formerly of Transmeta) about this. I think there was an Intel patent about them.