1. A method for use in a fixed point arithmetic processing device having an input vector that contains one or more vector elements, and is an M bit integer, and a maximum permitted left shift (MLS) value for the input vector is less than or equal to the value of M−2, the method for scaling all the vector elements based on the vector element with the largest magnitude, the method comprising: sequentially searching each vector element to find a left shift value for scaling each vector element; comparing the left shift values to determine a minimum left shift (NLS_MIN) for scaling the largest vector element; employing the NLS_MIN value to determine whether the input vector is a non-zero input vector; if so, regardless of whether the largest element of non-zero input vector has a positive or negative magnitude, offsetting the NLS_MIN value by the MLS value to obtain an actual number of left shifts (NLS) value for scaling the input vector; determining whether the input vector is a zero input vector; and if so, offsetting the NLS_MIN value by the MLS value to obtain the NLS value.