Applications
The YMF278 was used in the Moonsound MSX sound card as well as in Yamaha's Sound Edge sound card for IBM PC and compatibles, both released in 1995.
The Yamaha YMF278 or YMF278B, also known as the OPL4 (OPL is an acronym for FM Operator Type-L), is a sound chip that incorporates both FM synthesis and sample-based synthesis (often incorrectly called "wavetable synthesis") by Yamaha.
The FM part is essentially a YMF262 (OPL3) block; thus, it is also backward-compatible with the YM3526 (OPL) and the YM3812 (OPL2). Like the OPL3, it can operate in one of four ways:
Four-operator FM allows more complex sounds but reduces polyphony.
Eight waveforms are available for the FM synthesis:
Unlike the OPL3, which has four channels for sound output, the OPL4 features six channels.
The sample synthesis part is based on pulse-code modulation (PCM). It features:
The PCM synthesizer part accepts:
For ROM wave data access, the Yamaha YRW801 2MB ROM chip can be connected to the OPL4. It holds approximately 330 samples, mostly 22.05-kHz 12-bit samples with some drums at 44.1 kHz. It is compatible with the General MIDI standard (128 melody sounds, 47 percussion sounds).
For sound effects, the OPL4 can be connected to the Yamaha YSS225 effects processor (EP), which adds various sound effects.
Like its predecessors, the OPL4 outputs audio in digital-I/O form, thus requiring an external DAC chip. The YMF278 is used with the Yamaha YAC513 DAC chip, which was also used with the YMF262 prior.
The YMF278 was used in the Moonsound MSX sound card as well as in Yamaha's Sound Edge sound card for IBM PC and compatibles, both released in 1995.
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