Rationale:
-Condition Registers are conceptually perfect for use as predicate masks, the only problem being that typical Vector ISAs have quite comprehensive mask-based instructions: set-before-first, popcount and much more. In fact many Vector ISAs can use Vectors *as* masks, consequently the entire Vector ISA is available for use in creating masks. This is not practical for SV given the strategy of leveraging Scalar instructions in a minimalist way.
+Condition Registers are conceptually perfect for use as predicate masks, the only problem being that typical Vector ISAs have quite comprehensive mask-based instructions: set-before-first, popcount and much more. In fact many Vector ISAs can use Vectors *as* masks, consequently the entire Vector ISA is available for use in creating masks. This is not practical for SV given the strategy of leveraging pre-existing Scalar instructions in a minimalist way.
With the scalar OpenPOWER v3.0B ISA having already popcnt, cntlz and others normally seen in Vector Mask operations it makes sense to allow *both* scalar integers *and* CR-Vectors to be predicate masks. That in turn means that much more comprehensive interaction between CRs and scalar Integers is required, because with the CR Predication Modes designating CR *Fields*
(not CR bits) as Predicate Elements, fast transfers between CR *Fields* and