Approaches are described to improve database performance by implementing a RLE decompression function at a low level within a general-purpose processor or an external block. Specifically, embodiments of a hardware implementation of an instruction for RLE decompression are disclosed. The described approaches improve performance by supporting the RLE decompression function within a processor and/or external block. Specifically, a RLE decompression hardware implementation is disclosed that produces a 64-bit RLE decompression result, with an example embodiment performing the task in two pipelined execution stages with a throughput of one per cycle. According to embodiments, hardware organization of narrow-width shifters operating in parallel, controlled by computed shift counts, is used to perform the decompression. Because of the decreased time required to perform RLE decompression according to embodiments, the performance of tasks that use embodiments described herein for decompression of run-length encoded data is made more efficient.