An input section is an individual section from an input object file. It contains code, initialized data, or describes a fragment of memory that is not initialized or that must be set to zero before the image can execute. These properties are represented by attributes such as RO, RW and ZI. These attributes are used by armlink to group input sections into bigger building blocks called output sections and regions.

An output section is a group of input sections that have the same RO, RW, or ZI attribute, and that are placed contiguously in memory by the linker. An output section has the same attributes as its constituent input sections. Within an output section, the input sections are sorted according to the section placement rules.

A region is a contiguous sequence of one, two, or three output sections depending on the contents of the number of sections with different attributes. The output sections in a region are sorted according to their attributes. The RO output section is first, then the RW output section, and finally the ZI output section. A region typically maps onto a physical memory device, such as ROM, RAM, or peripheral.

A Program Segment corresponds to a load region and contains output sections. Program Segments hold information such as text and data.