diff --git a/lib/Target/CellSPU/SPUMCAsmInfo.cpp b/lib/Target/CellSPU/SPUMCAsmInfo.cpp
index 5ef3c6b24de..3e17a51b505 100644
--- a/lib/Target/CellSPU/SPUMCAsmInfo.cpp
+++ b/lib/Target/CellSPU/SPUMCAsmInfo.cpp
@@ -34,5 +34,8 @@ SPULinuxMCAsmInfo::SPULinuxMCAsmInfo(const Target &T, const StringRef &TT) {
   // Exception handling is not supported on CellSPU (think about it: you only
   // have 256K for code+data. Would you support exception handling?)
   ExceptionsType = ExceptionHandling::None;
+
+  // SPU assembly requires ".section" before ".bss" 
+  UsesELFSectionDirectiveForBSS = true;  
 }
 
diff --git a/test/CodeGen/CellSPU/bss.ll b/test/CodeGen/CellSPU/bss.ll
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..05a0f500393
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/CodeGen/CellSPU/bss.ll
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+; RUN: llc < %s -march=cellspu > %t1.s
+; RUN: grep "\.section" %t1.s | grep "\.bss" | count 1
+
+@bssVar = global i32 zeroinitializer
+