A parallel decompression engine has separate hardware paths for sequence processing and repeated byte copying/placement. Literal byte extraction logic obtains literal bytes from a selected sequence. Literal byte write logic writes the obtained literal bytes into an uncompressed data set that is being generated. Offset and length extraction logic obtains the offset and length of repeated bytes from the selected sequence. In a separate hardware path, copying and placement logic uses the offset and length to find and copy the length of repeated bytes at the specified offset in the uncompressed data set, and place the copied repeated bytes back into the uncompressed data set adjacent to the literal bytes.