I am not an expert on linker scripts. The first_data section creates a dedicated section at the beginning of RAM for all initialized data, guaranteeing 4-byte alignment. This is useful if large contiguous block of uncached memory is required at the start of RAM for DMA. In the context of FreeRTOS-Plus-TCP, the 4-byte alignment enforced by linker scripts is primarily intended for efficient DMA access to network buffers.. From this post - FreeRTOS +TCP on SAME70 - #13 by PBot, I think this is also done to deal with the D-cache (if enabled) and maintain cache coherency. I will let the experts from the community and my colleagues/TCP developers confirm here. @htibosch @Shub @moninom1 @ActoryOu @tony-josi-aws