Abstract: The present invention provides a method and apparatus for programming embedded memories or on-chip caches of a variety of integrated circuits through use of the IEEE Test Access Port (TAP) architecture and logic. To accomplish this, the TAP architecture is utilized to serially shift address, data and command information into respective register chains of a RISM ACTION register located within a memory interface unit of the integrated circuit. The TAP architecture includes, among other things, a TAP port, a TAP controller and an instruction register. According to the general method used to program the embedded memories, the external system transmits a plurality of sequential signals to respective register chains of the RISM ACTION register, each sequential signal comprising an instruction specifying a write command, an address specifying a consecutive memory location within the storage means and consecutive data strings to be written to the consecutive memory locations.