By default, IAS aligns bundles on 16-byte boundaries, and data elements according to their size.
IAS aligns each section according to the largest alignment request in the section. Bundles, data elements, or an .align directive create alignment requests.
The object file format limits section alignment. COFF32 object file format limits section alignment boundaries to 8 KB. The actual limitation depends on the linker alignment policy. See the Microsoft* Developer Studio, Visual C++* User's Guide, and LINK Reference for more information on the linker.
To disable automatic alignment in data allocation statements, add a .ua completer to the data allocation statement. For example:
data8.ua 0x855
Alignment is fully defined in the IntelŪ ItaniumŪ Architecture Assembly Language Reference Guide.