Yamaha

Founded: 1887-08-12

Headquarters:

Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan

The Yamaha Corporation (Japanese: ヤマハ株式会社; Romaji: Yamaha Kabushikigaisha) is a Japanese company with a large number of product areas. Sales offerings include motorcycles (Yamaha Motor Corporation), musical instruments, integrated circuits, and home electronics. It was founded by Torakusu Yamaha as Nippon Gakki Co., Ltd. (Japanese: 日本楽器製造株式会社; Romaji: Nippon Gakki Seizou Kabushikigaisha) in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture. Yamaha acquired Korg in 1989.

Yamaha has produced many of the integrated circuit chips for Sega arcade and console hardware, such as the YM2612 sound chip for the Sega Mega Drive console. Yamaha held the patent for FM synthesis, which was featured in many Yamaha sound chips, while some of their sound chips also featured PCM sampling. In addition, Yamaha also manufactured VDP graphics processors for the Sega Master System and Mega Drive consoles.

Hardware produced

Consoles

Copera (1993)

Integrated circuits

Sound chips

YM2203 - used in Sega System series
YM2151 - used in Sega System series
YM2413 - used in FM Sound Unit (for Mark III), Japanese Master System, and MSX
YM2612 - used in Mega Drive and Sega System 32
Sega MultiPCM - based on Yamaha YMF278, used in Sega System Multi 32 and Model series
Saturn Custom Sound Processor (SCSP/YMF292) - used in Saturn, ST-V, and Sega Model series
Yamaha Super Intelligent Sound Processor (AICA) - used in Dreamcast and Sega NAOMI series

VDP

YM2602 - VDP in Mark III and Master System
YM7101 - VDP in Mega Drive

Softography

Pico

Melody Land (1993)
Do Re Mi Fa Densetsu (1993)
Copera no Time Machine (199x)
Otto Katachitchi (199x)
Outa no Canvas (199x)
Copera no Kono Ato Naani (1994)
Mike to Asobou Tobidase Milky Way (1994)
Oshare no Kuni no Alice (199x)
Copera no Chikyuu Daisuki (199x)
Bouken! Merorin-tou (199x)

Gallery

Logo for XGlite; a Yamaha extension to the General MIDI standard supported by the Sega Dreamcast.

External links

References