A calculating apparatus, or system, having a plurality of stages, such as in a pipeline arrangement, has the clocking rail or conductor positioned alongside the stages. With a large number, i.e., hundreds, of stages arranged in parallel sub-arrays, the clocking conductor is snaked alongside the sub-arrays. In individual stages it is arranged that the shortest of the two calculations taking place in a stage, takes place in the return path. An array can be divided into separate sections for independent processing.

An apparatus for calculating and encryption of data has a multistage processing array and a plurality of registers. Each register has a status bit which indicates a "go" or "done" condition when the register is loaded. This enables the process array, after completion of a processing cycle, to connect to a "ready" register.