To improve the performance of operations that required the output of one PE's results to be used as the input to another PE, the PEs were connected directly to their neighbours, as well as the ones eight-steps away - for instance, PE1 was directly connected to PE0 and PE2, as well as PE9 and PE45. The eight-away connections allowed faster transport when the data needed to travel between more distant PEs. Each shift of data moved 64-words in a single 125 ns clock cycle.