SegaPCM

From Sega Retro


This teeny-tiny article needs some work. You can help us by expanding it.


SegaPCM is the colloquial name of a PCM audio chip used by Sega in a number of arcade boards used by AM2 between 1985 and 1991. The chip's part number varies; see below. The manufacturere is unknown.

The chip is an 16-channel stereo digital mixing chip that uses external sample ROM. The chip is not pure stereo; it simply duplicates its input data on both left and right channels, allowing you to set the two channel volumes independnetly of each other to simulate panning. Samples play at a fixed frequency and can be looped. It presumably allows up to 16MB of sample ROM provided by the board but has additional banking hardware(?). the sample format is some 8-bit PCM (what form it is is not yet determined by anyone here). Whether or not it produces an analog or digital signal is also undetermined by editors here.

Rather than using this chip, Sega decided to use a simple DAC for its main arcade board at the time, the Sega System 16 board, for playing back samples, and continued to use a simple DAC in the System 24 before switching to chips by other vendors later.

Arcadde Boards with SegaPCM and Part Numbers