An apparatus (100) comprising a programmable memory transfer request processing (PMTRP) unit (120) and a programmable direct memory access (PDMA) unit (140). The PMTRP unit (120) comprises at least one programmable region descriptor (123). The PDMA unit (140) comprises at least one programmable memory-to-memory transfer control descriptor (148, 149, 150). The PDMA unit (140) is adapted to send (143) a memory transfer request to the PMTRP unit (120). The PMTRP unit (120) is adapted to receive (134) and successfully process a memory transfer request issued by the PDMA unit (120) that is addressed to a memory location that is associated with a portion of at least one of the at least one region descriptor (123) of the PMTRP unit (120).