diff --git a/wolfssl/wolfcrypt/sha256.h b/wolfssl/wolfcrypt/sha256.h
index d8239c2e3..a6c4ea46a 100644
--- a/wolfssl/wolfcrypt/sha256.h
+++ b/wolfssl/wolfcrypt/sha256.h
@@ -179,9 +179,14 @@ struct wc_Sha256 {
 #elif defined(WOLFSSL_HAVE_PSA) && !defined(WOLFSSL_PSA_NO_HASH)
     psa_hash_operation_t psa_ctx;
 #else
+#ifdef WC_64BIT_CPU
     /* alignment on digest and buffer speeds up ARMv8 crypto operations */
     ALIGN16 word32  digest[WC_SHA256_DIGEST_SIZE / sizeof(word32)];
     ALIGN16 word32  buffer[WC_SHA256_BLOCK_SIZE  / sizeof(word32)];
+#else
+    word32  digest[WC_SHA256_DIGEST_SIZE / sizeof(word32)];
+    word32  buffer[WC_SHA256_BLOCK_SIZE  / sizeof(word32)];
+#endif
     word32  buffLen;   /* in bytes          */
     word32  loLen;     /* length in bytes   */
     word32  hiLen;     /* length in bytes   */