The YM3012, aka DAC-MS, is a floating point digital-to-analog converter chip developed by Yamaha. The DAC generates stereo analog output from a digital serial input comprising a 10-bit mantissa and a 3-bit exponent. This data is expanded over a possible 16 bits (96 dB) of dynamic range, but the fact that each sample is quantised to a mantissa and exponent means that the final signal-to-noise ratio is rather fewer than 16 bits.
The YM3012 was notably used to generate analogue audio from the various digital frequency modulation (really phase modulation) chips by Yamaha: the YM2151 in various arcade machines and home computers; the almost identical YM2164 in Yamaha's DX21, DX27, DX100, and FB-01 synths; and the YM2414 in their TX81Z and DX11 synthesisers.
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