The SAP Sybase IQ binary load format is a fixed-width format.
In general, fixed-width loads complete faster than variable-width loads. When the load logic recognizes column and row length, data is processed more efficiently. Using delimiters to separate columns and rows that vary in width forces the load to spend time scanning the input data looking for them.
The IQ binary load format is a fixed-width load. The load can determine the width of each column and length of each row from information in the table definition.