SELECTIVE WRITING OF DATA ELEMENTS FROM PACKED DATA BASED UPON A MASK USING PREDICATION

A method and apparatus for selectively writing data elements from packed data based upon a mask using predication. In one embodiment of the invention, for each data element of a packed data operand, the following is performed in parallel processing units: determining a predicate value for the data element from one or more bits of a corresponding packed data mask element indicating whether the data element is selected for writing to a corresponding storage location, and storing in the corresponding storage location the data element based on the predicate value.