Applications, depending on their nature, demand either higher computing capacity, larger data-storage capacity, or both. Hence, providing on-chip memory and computing resources that are fixed in nature is expensive and does not enable an efficient utilization of on-chip silicon real estate. In this brief, we design the circuit of an adaptive register file computing (ARC) unit, a novel on-chip dual-role circuit with a minimal area overhead of 0.233 mm 2 at 0.18-mu technology. It supplements the conventional register bank to provide larger register storage capacity or acts as a specialized computing unit to provide higher on-chip computing capacity, depending on the requirement of a specific application. The brief discusses the circuit-level details for the implementation of the dual-role ARC unit, its integration in a wide-issue processor pipeline, and the corresponding performance enhancement in various multimedia applications.