The memory access capabilities of a host processor are used to facilitate the movement of instructions and data to an application-specific component having direct access to memory. Although the component executes code absent direct host processor control, the code may be uniquely tailored to the component's architecture. According to one embodiment, a flow of instructions requested by a host processor from a memory device is monitored. The flow of instructions is routed to an application-specific component in response to identifying code embedded in the flow of instructions targeted for execution by the component. While the instruction flow is routed to the component, a sequence of instructions is directed to the host processor that maintains instruction execution flow in the host processor, e.g., no-op instructions. When the end of the application-specific code is detected, the instruction flow is re-routed to the host processor for execution.