It was the progenitor of Yamaha's OPN family of FM synthesis chips used in many video game and computer systems throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.
It was used in a variety of NEC computers, along with various arcade game machines.
The YM2203 has the following features: The YM2203 and the rest of the OPN synthesizer family generate sound via frequency-modulated digital sine waves.
It included 12 operator "cells", each generating a 13-bit sine wave at a programmable frequency, the volume of which is controlled by a programmable ADSR envelope generator.
The ADSR parameters, multiplier and detune settings for each operator, combined with the algorithm, make up what are known as instrument patches.