diff --git a/docs/en/api-guides/build-system.rst b/docs/en/api-guides/build-system.rst
index ba26e8bed92..f145850e7eb 100644
--- a/docs/en/api-guides/build-system.rst
+++ b/docs/en/api-guides/build-system.rst
@@ -996,6 +996,10 @@ To embed a file into a project, rather than a component, you can call the functi
 
 Place this line after the ``project()`` line in your project CMakeLists.txt file. Replace ``myproject.elf`` with your project name. The final argument can be ``TEXT`` to embed a null-terminated string, or ``BINARY`` to embed the content as-is.
 
+Use the optional ``ALIGN`` argument to align the embedded data's start symbol to a positive power of two. For example, to align binary data to 16 bytes::
+
+  target_add_binary_data(myproject.elf "main/data.bin" BINARY ALIGN 16)
+
 For an example of using this technique, see the "main" component of the file_serving example :example_file:`protocols/http_server/file_serving/main/CMakeLists.txt` - two files are loaded at build time and linked into the firmware.
 
 .. highlight:: cmake
diff --git a/docs/zh_CN/api-guides/build-system.rst b/docs/zh_CN/api-guides/build-system.rst
index cc1c4c55563..f0e4497ee8e 100644
--- a/docs/zh_CN/api-guides/build-system.rst
+++ b/docs/zh_CN/api-guides/build-system.rst
@@ -996,6 +996,10 @@ CMake 文件可以使用 ``IDF_TARGET`` 变量来获取当前的硬件目标。
 
 并将这行代码放在项目 CMakeLists.txt 的 ``project()`` 命令之后，修改 ``myproject.elf`` 为你自己的项目名。如果最后一个参数是 ``TEXT``，那么构建系统会嵌入以 null 结尾的字符串，如果最后一个参数被设置为 ``BINARY``，则将文件内容按照原样嵌入。
 
+可选的 ``ALIGN`` 参数用于将嵌入数据的起始符号对齐到指定的正整数 2 的幂。例如，将二进制数据按 16 字节对齐::
+
+  target_add_binary_data(myproject.elf "main/data.bin" BINARY ALIGN 16)
+
 有关使用此技术的示例，请查看 file_serving 示例 :example_file:`protocols/http_server/file_serving/main/CMakeLists.txt` 中的 main 组件，两个文件会在编译时加载并链接到固件中。
 
 .. highlight:: cmake
diff --git a/tools/cmake/scripts/data_file_embed_asm.cmake b/tools/cmake/scripts/data_file_embed_asm.cmake
index 5d19e7a1ba9..b8612976894 100644
--- a/tools/cmake/scripts/data_file_embed_asm.cmake
+++ b/tools/cmake/scripts/data_file_embed_asm.cmake
@@ -74,6 +74,9 @@ append_line(".data")
 append_line("#if !defined (__APPLE__) && !defined (__linux__)")
 append_line(".section .rodata.embedded")
 append_line("#endif")
+if(DEFINED DATA_ALIGNMENT)
+    append_line(".balign ${DATA_ALIGNMENT}")
+endif()
 make_and_append_identifier("${varname}")
 make_and_append_identifier("_binary_${varname}_start" "for objcopy compatibility")
 append("${data}")
diff --git a/tools/cmake/utilities.cmake b/tools/cmake/utilities.cmake
index 4cc9711431d..122a133e790 100644
--- a/tools/cmake/utilities.cmake
+++ b/tools/cmake/utilities.cmake
@@ -75,9 +75,10 @@ endfunction()
 
 # target_add_binary_data adds binary data into the built target,
 # by converting it to a generated source file which is then compiled
-# to a binary object as part of the build
+# to a binary object as part of the build. ALIGN optionally sets the
+# alignment of the embedded data's start symbol.
 function(target_add_binary_data target embed_file embed_type)
-    cmake_parse_arguments(_ "" "RENAME_TO" "DEPENDS" ${ARGN})
+    cmake_parse_arguments(_ "" "RENAME_TO;ALIGN" "DEPENDS" ${ARGN})
     idf_build_get_property(build_dir BUILD_DIR)
     idf_build_get_property(idf_path IDF_PATH)
 
@@ -91,11 +92,24 @@ function(target_add_binary_data target embed_file embed_type)
         set(rename_to_arg -D "VARIABLE_BASENAME=${__RENAME_TO}")
     endif()
 
+    set(align_arg)
+    if(DEFINED __ALIGN)
+        if(NOT __ALIGN MATCHES "^[1-9][0-9]*$")
+            message(FATAL_ERROR "ALIGN must be a positive integer")
+        endif()
+        math(EXPR alignment_mask "${__ALIGN} & (${__ALIGN} - 1)")
+        if(NOT alignment_mask EQUAL 0)
+            message(FATAL_ERROR "ALIGN must be a power of two")
+        endif()
+        set(align_arg -D "DATA_ALIGNMENT=${__ALIGN}")
+    endif()
+
     add_custom_command(OUTPUT "${embed_srcfile}"
         COMMAND "${CMAKE_COMMAND}"
         -D "DATA_FILE=${embed_file}"
         -D "SOURCE_FILE=${embed_srcfile}"
         ${rename_to_arg}
+        ${align_arg}
         -D "FILE_TYPE=${embed_type}"
         -P "${idf_path}/tools/cmake/scripts/data_file_embed_asm.cmake"
         MAIN_DEPENDENCY "${embed_file}"