Abstract: In one embodiment of the invention, the selection of the number of the latches from which data is read can be changed dynamically during the generation of the data stream. The scanning of the latches can be stopped temporarily while the next set of data from the memory is stored in the latches, then resumed. For example, assume that n+1 number of banks are provided in the memory and that the selection of the number of the latches can be changed dynamically between n and n+1. Then, the possible length/period, N, of the data stream that can be generated would be:N=i*n+j*(n+1)where i and j are non-negative integers, and one of i or j is non-zero.In another embodiment of the present invention, the memory has m+n banks, and the latch group has m+n latches. The number of the latches from which data is read during each scanning cycle can be selected from the range n, n+1, . . . , n+m-1, n+m. Consequently, any data stream having a length or period which is a multiple of any of n, n+1, . . .