A processor includes a memory hierarchy, buffer, and a decompressor. The decompressor includes circuitry to read elements to be decompressed according to a compression scheme, parse the elements to identify literals and matches, and, with the literals and matches, generate an intermediate token stream formatted for software-based copying of the literals and matches to produce decompressed data. The intermediate token stream is to include a format for multiple tokens that are to be written in parallel with each other, and another format for tokens that include a data dependency upon themselves.