SN76489

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SN76489
Designer: Texas Instruments

The SN76489 is a TTL-compatible, 4-channel Programmable Sound Generator (PSG) IC from Texas Instruments. Its main application has been entertainment and it has been used to provide music and sound effects in Game consoles, arcade hardware and home computers.

Features of the SN76489 are:

• Three programmable square wave tone generators
• One programmable white noise generator
• Programmable attenuation
• Mono audio output

The frequency of the square waves produced at each channel is derived by two factors: the speed of the external clock and a value provided in a control register for that channel (called N). The eventual frequency is arrived at by dividing the external clock by 32 and then dividing the result by N for each channel.

The Sega PSG is based on the SN76489. The Sega PSG is included 'on-chip' in Sega's Video Display Processors (VDP) for their Master System, Game Gear and Mega Drive game consoles. The Sega VDP is also based on the Texas Instruments TMS9918A VDP.