ESS Company is one of the veterans of sound card industry. There are many models of sound card chips produced by ESS Company, from the original ISA sound card to the latest PCI sound card chip. The following two models are popular products.
ES 1948F chip
ES 1948F adopts a newly designed dual-channel engine, and the number of multi-tone words reaches 64, which greatly improves the speed and quality. At the same time, it also supports DLS wave tables from 1MB to 8MB. In addition, it also has a built-in 64-channel waveform processor with a working frequency of 50MHz. The patented Wave Cache can independently process the sound of a channel, such as tone sandhi, tone filtering, vibrato, echo and so on. Maestro- 1 still uses the Spatializer 3D sound processor. There are many sound cards using ES 1948F chips, among which 3DP Sound from ASUS, 64PCI from Qiheng and TeraSound 128PCI from Shuohe are typical.
ES 1968S chip
It was improved from ES 1948F, but it changed greatly, and it is the main product of ESS company at present. ES 1968S, like ES 1948F, has a built-in dual-channel engine and 64 polyphonic words, and can use up to 8MB of RAM to save wave table samples. The signal-to-noise ratio of the chip itself exceeds 85dB. In addition, it uses Sensaura 3D algorithm provided by CRL in Microsoft DirectSound 3D to replace the used Spatializer 3D sound effect, and can also support the output of up to four speakers. Moreover, ES 1968S also supports two updated advanced energy management specifications, ACAPI V 1. 1 and APM V2. 1, which are more suitable for notebook computers. The representative works using ES 1968S include Sonic Impact S70 of Diamond and A3D Pro of Qiheng. Both of them were famous low-end PCI sound card products.
2. Yamaha chip
Yamaha in Japan has always been famous for producing world-famous electronic musical instruments, and MIDI is its specialty. Therefore, the sound effect chip produced by this company is more realistic when dealing with MIDI playback. Moreover, the company also produced the famous SYXG soft wave table synthesizer. Through Yamaha's excellent algorithm, its performance is almost equivalent to many expensive high-end sound cards. Several of its products have a good reputation, and it also uses its own sound chip to produce its own sound card products like innovation.
YMF724E chip
Yamaha's main sound card chip YMF724E, together with YMF730 digital-to-analog conversion chip, has become a low-end sound card combination, mainly aimed at the low-end sound card market.
YMF724E-V chip
YMF724E-V is compatible with the previous Yamaha chip FM pronunciation mode, and the number of polyphonic words is increased to 192! Among them, 64 are generated by hardware wave table, and the other 128 are generated by software from SYXG. It can use 2MB~6MB RAM to store DLS, so the effect of MIDI playback is quite good. High cost performance is the biggest feature of this sound chip. Figure 1 is a sound card made of this chip.
Figure 1 YMF724E-
YMF740 chip
Yamaha's latest audio product YMF740 chip. It can perform up to 42 groups of special effects, 2 1 drum and 676 kinds of musical instruments! At the same time, it also has the hardware acceleration ability of DirectSound 3D and DirectMusic which support creative SB-Link and Microsoft DirectX 6.0.
3. Cirrus Logic/Crystal Semiconductor Chip
Cirrus Logic/Crystal Semiconductor is another electronic supplier famous for producing integrated circuits. It was formed by the merger of Cirrus Logic Company and Crystal Semiconductor Company. Cirrus Logic has made great achievements in logic circuits, display chips and interface control chips (such as PCMCIA). On the other hand, crystal semiconductor has a strong development strength in sound chip, and there are many product models. It can be said that all the sound chips of CL/CS company are developed by it.
CS4280 chip
CS4280 chip is an earlier PCI product of CL/CS company, which is generally matched with CS4297 digital-to-analog conversion chip produced by the same factory. CS4280 has 64 polyphonic digits and supports wave tables up to 2MB. In addition, it also has a built-in SRS surround effector. In addition, CS4280 also supports MPU-40 1, FM synthesis, volume adjustment by hardware and APM energy management, so it is very suitable for notebook computers.
CS46 14 chip.
CS46 14 chip is a product recently developed by CL/CS company, and the digital-to-analog conversion chip generally adopts 4297A. CS46 14A-CM has a SLIMD DSP architecture of 255MIPS, supports 64 kinds of polyphony, and can use a 4MB RAM wave table. Moreover, it has hardware acceleration function for NetMeeting AEC, and the signal-to-noise ratio of the chip itself is greater than 90dB. Like ES 1968S of ESS, it also supports advanced energy management functions of ACAPI and APM V 1.2, and has perfect support for DMA mode, so it has good compatibility in DOS environment. In the aspect of DSP sound effect, CS46 14A-CM adopts the core circuit of Cirrus Logic crystal cleaning processor, and with the accompanying software, A3D sound effect can be realized. Because of the main control bus mode, the CPU occupancy rate is less, which reduces the resource occupation of the system when playing back sound. Sound cards with CS46 14 chips mainly include Audio Phantom AW500 based on Aopen.
4.Trident sound chip series
Trident began to set foot in the field of low-end sound card chips last year, producing sound cards with its own chips. At present, the PCI sound chip launched by the company is 4D Wave series. The 4D Wave-DX chip has 64 hardware polyphones and supports wave tables up to 6MB. Like ES 1948F of ESS, Trident 4Dwave-DX can also handle the sound effects of one channel alone. In the aspect of 3D surround sound, QSound generator newly developed by Qsound is adopted, which supports HRTF effect, Doppler effect simulation, IID (sound texture) and ITD (sound delay difference) in delay, A3D can be simulated by software, and the signal-to-noise ratio of the chip itself is above 90dB. The latest 4D Wave-NX chip is improved on the basis of DX, which mainly increases the support for S/PDIF output and innovative EAX environmental sound effects (actually only supports some effects). The product using this chip on the market is SonicWave 4D of Jaden.
5. Creative series
EMU 10K 1 chip
Fig. 2 EMU 10K 1 chip
Innovative companies have always been the standard of sound card industry and the leader in this field. The latest sound blaster live! The chip used in the sound card is EMU 10K 1, and it is said that the ultrasonic chip used in the Singapore government weapons factory is used. It combines innovation and the painstaking efforts of E-mu Company for many years, and mainly matches its own CT 1297-TAT digital-to-analog conversion chip. Using 0.35 micron manufacturing technology, more than 2 million transistors are integrated, and the computing power can reach 1000 megabits (equivalent to an ordinary Pentium processor). The main technical features are the integration of EAX environmental sound technology developed by E-mu, the fourth generation sound simulation technology of E-mu and Darwin's hard disk recording combination function. So in a sense, it is no longer an ordinary sound chip, but a quasi-professional music workstation. In sound processing, EMU 10K 1 takes the lead in using the patented 8-point interpolation algorithm, which makes the processed digital sound almost have no "digital sound" characteristics and become more pleasant. The built-in music synthesis engine can provide 64 hardware polyphones, which can reach up to 5 12 polyphones with the corresponding soft wave table. Now through the latest Liveware 2.0, the number of supported polyphonic words has increased to 1024! In addition, it also supports 48 MIDI channels and has built-in 128 GM/GS sound model. 1999 At the end of March, the innovation company launched the latest EAX 3.0 environmental sound API. With the help of hardware acceleration of EMU 10K 1, the ambient sound effect can be improved to a higher performance level.
Figure 3 SB live broadcast!
ES 1370, ES 137 1 and creative 5507 chips.
Chips ES 137 1, ES 1370 and Creative 5507 are used to innovate their own Ensoniq Audio PCI (Sound Blaster PCI 32), Sound Blaster PCI64 and Sound Blaster PCI 128 sound cards respectively. The first two are made by Ensoniq (now an innovative subsidiary). All three chips have only 32 hardware polyphones, among which PCI64 and PCI 128 can be expanded into 64 and 128 polyphones through corresponding soft wave tables, and all of them can use 4 MB ~ 8 MB sample download space. They support the acceleration of Microsoft DirectSound and DirectSound 3D, and can support EAX through software upgrade, but they only realize the 3D surround effect of EAX, and the environmental sound effect cannot be realized because the chip's "skill" is not enough.
Figure 4 Innovative PCI64 sound card
6. Gold semiconductor series chips
Now the only thing that can compete with innovation on the sound chip is probably Auri Semiconductor. The company is most proud of its A3D sound effect, which is a sound simulation system specially used by NASA for astronaut training. Even the demanding NASA adopted Aureal's A3D sound stage simulation technology. It is conceivable that Orel is authoritative and leading in this respect.
Vortex-1(AU8820) chip
This is one of the most used chips on the market at present. Its main feature is that it fully supports the A3D 1.0 standard developed by Aureal Company, has 64 hardware polyphones and supports 4MB DLS wave tables. The signal-to-noise ratio of the chip itself is higher than 90dB. Another feature of the chip is that if it is matched with corresponding software such as PowerDVD (the latest PowerDVD 2.5 also supports SBLive! And SBLive! Value), it can also decode dolby digital (AC-3). But in fact, it is not AC-3, because AC-3 stipulates 5. 1 channel playback, and Aureal's full range of sound chips can only support four speakers at most. Aureal also added a new Sound Blaster/Pro simulation technology to AU8820, which can effectively support the DOS environment. In addition, AU8820 also supports MPU-40 1, which can be directly connected with a modem to expand its functions. It can even connect Motorola's 560 1 1 DSP chip to speed up decoding! Classic products using L 'Oré al chips include Monti's Sonic Impact S90 and L 'Oré al's AU8820.
Vortex -2(AU8830) chip
Fig. 5 Vortex -2(AU8830) Chip
This is the latest product of L 'Oré al. Because Aureal's chip is specially designed for its sound API, it can make full use of A3D2.0. In fact, even the more powerful creative EMU 10K 1 chip claims to have the hardware processing capability of 1000 IPS, the sound field of A3D2.0 cannot be simulated by software. AU8830 can provide 600 megabits of processing power (Aureal's algorithm for processing power is different from Creative's, and if converted into the algorithm of innovative company, it can provide 1200 megabits of processing power), with 320 polyphonic capabilities (including 64 hard wave tables and 256 soft wave tables), DLS and 4MB wave tables, and up to 96 direct channels. Signal-to-noise ratio is as high as 96dB. Au8830 can be externally connected with up to four digital-to-analog converters and a modem digital-to-analog converter, and can be upgraded to dolby digital (AC-3) decoder through daughter card. In addition, A3D 2.0 sound field positioning technology supported by A3D2.0 has wave tracking ability and environmental material setting/response function. A 4-speaker surround sound system is adopted for the first time to obtain the best sound field positioning effect. Aureal's Au8830, Monster Voice MX300 of Imperial Alliance, MontegoⅱII II of Turtle Beach and Storm Platinum of Sited all used this chip. Now this kind of sound card is very cheap. If you are a super game fan, then you must not miss the sound card of the AU8830 chip.