An output buffer holds N words arranged as N/J mutually exclusive output buffer word groups (OBWG) of J words each. N processing units (PU) are arranged as N/J mutually exclusive PU groups each having an associated OBWG. Each PU has an accumulator, arithmetic unit, and first and second multiplexed registers each having at least J+1 inputs. A first input receives a memory operand and the other J inputs receive the J words of the associated OBWG. Each accumulator provides its output to a respective OBWG. Each arithmetic unit performs an operation on the first and second multiplexed register outputs and accumulator output to generate a result for accumulation into the accumulator. A mask input to the output buffer controls which words, if any, of the N words retain their current value or are updated with their respective accumulator output. Each PU group operates as a recurrent neural network LSTM cell.