Sound chip
Integrated circuit designed to produce audio signals
A sound chip is an integrated circuit (chip) designed to produce audio signals through digital, analog or mixed-mode electronics. Sound chips are typically fabricated on metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) mixed-signal chips that process audio signals. They normally contain audio components such as oscillators, envelope generators, samplers, filters, amplifiers.
01History
A number of sound synthesis methods for electronically producing sound were devised during the late 20th century. These include programmable sound generators (PSG), wavetable synthesis, and frequency modulation synthesis (FM synthesis). Such sound chips were widely used in arcade game system boards, video game consoles, home computers and digital synthesizers.
Since the late 1990s, pulse-code modulation (PCM) sampling has been the standard for many sound chips, as used in the Intel High Definition Audio (IHDA) standard of 2004. The PCM sampling method is used in many mobile phones and sound cards for personal computers. This widespread use is part of the digital sound revolution that started in the 1980s.
02Types
There are multiple types of sound chips, which are divided based on their use.
- Programmable sound generators
- Synthesis
- Sampling
- Sound enhancement effects
- Audio equalizer
- Resampling compensation
- Proprietary sound enhancer such as Dolby Atmos
While traditional sound chips focus on general audio synthesis (e.g., in PCs or musical instruments), voice chips represent a specialized category optimized for voice-related applications. Based on market trends, they can be divided into five primary types, each with distinct technical characteristics and use cases.
| Type | Core features |
|---|---|
| One-time programmable (OTP) voice chips |
|
| Flash voice chips |
|
| MP3 voice chips |
|
| Text-to-speech (TTS) voice chips |
|
| Voice dialog chips |
|
03Applications
Sound chips are commonly used in various digital electronic devices, particularly personal computers (including sound cards and motherboards), video game systems (including arcade system boards and video game consoles), electronic musical instruments (including synthesizers, digital synthesizers and electronic keyboards), and digital telecommunications (including digital telephony, digital television, mobile phones and smartphones).
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Sound chip”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Creative Technology Sound Blaster CT4810 - Creative CT2518-DAQ-4201.jpg by Raimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0
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