Indeed, it is several papers. There are two journals in my field - one I can't read because it's behind a paywall and one that's expensive to publish in. I choose the latter, but couldn't afford multiple months of rent in order to publish several papers. :(
It's really extraordinary how tightly coupled modern innovation in scientific fields is to processor implementations. I suspect you and I share a keen interest in the path by which we got to this enviable situation.
A blog post I wrote years ago use to part of the "implement popcnt" literature - http://www.dalkescientific.com/writings/diary/archive/2008/0... . It's now outdated, and actual low-level programmers have done better, but it still gets mentioned in-passing in postings like the one referenced on HN last year at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20914479 .