Methods and apparatus are provided for a digital signal processor having an instruction set with one or more non-linear complex functions. A method is provided for a processor. One or more non-linear complex software instructions are obtained from a program. The non-linear complex software instructions have at least one complex number as an input. One or more non-linear complex functions are applied from a predefined instruction set to the at least one complex number. An output is generated comprised of one complex number or two real numbers. A functional unit can implement the one or more non-linear complex functions. In one embodiment, a vector-based digital signal processor is disclosed that processes a complex vector comprised of a plurality of complex numbers. The processor can process the plurality of complex numbers in parallel.