Arithmetic issues in the calculation of the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) are discussed. Traditional algorithms using hardware division and square root are replaced with the special-purpose CORDIC algorithms for computing vector rotations and inverse tangents. The CORDIC 2 × 2 SVD processor can be twice as fast as one assembled from traditional hardware units. A CORDIC SVD processor array is suitable for VLSI implementation and is important for use in real-time signal processing applications.