List of Super NES enhancement chips

The list of Super NES enhancement chips demonstrates Nintendo hardware designers' plan to easily expand the Super Nintendo Entertainment System with special coprocessors. This standardized selection of chips was available to licensed developers, to increase system performance and features for each game cartridge. As increasingly superior chips became available throughout the Super NES's generation, this provided a cheaper and more versatile way of maintaining the system's market lifespan than building a much more expensive CPU, or an increasingly obsolete stock chipset, into the Super NES itself.

The presence of an enhancement chip is often indicated by 16 additional pins on either side of the original pins on the underside of the cartridge, 8 on each side of the center pins.^[1]

The Super FX chip is a 16-bit supplemental

This chip has at least four revisions, first as a

Cx4 coprocessor chip

Cx4 wireframe test screen

The Cx4 chip is a

A Cx4 self-test screen can be accessed by holding the 'B' button on the second controller upon system start-up in both Mega Man X2 and X3.^[6]

This series of fixed-point

The DSP-2 is only in Dungeon Master. Its primary purpose is to convert Atari ST bitmap image data into the Super NES bitplane format. It also provides dynamic scaling capability and transparency effects.^[12]

The DSP-3 is only in the turn-based strategy game SD Gundam GX for Super Famicom. It assists with tasks like calculating the next AI move, Shannon–Fano bitstream decompression, and bitplane conversion of graphics.^[13]

The DSP-4 is used in only Top Gear 3000. It primarily assists with drawing the race track, especially during the times that the track branches into multiple paths.

The hardware inside the Super Game Boy peripheral includes a Sharp SM83^[14][15] core mostly identical to the CPU in the handheld Game Boy.^[16] Because the Super NES is not powerful enough for software emulation of the Game Boy, the hardware for the entire handheld is inside of the cartridge.^[17] Game Boy games however run approximately 2.4% faster than on an actual Game Boy due to a slightly higher clock speed.^[18] The Super Game Boy 2, only released in Japan, fixes this.

This chip was made by MegaChips exclusively for

OBC-1 is a sprite manipulation chip used exclusively in the Super Scope game Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge, the sequel to Battle Clash.^[2]

The Rockwell RC96V24DP is a low power,

The S-DD1 chip is an

The S-DD1 mediates between the Super NES's

Star Ocean and Street Fighter Alpha 2 are the only games that use this chip. Emulation of the S-DD1 was initially difficult, requiring "graphics packs" to be provided for the affected games, until the compression algorithm was identified.^[22][23]

S-RTC is a

The Super Accelerator 1 (SA1) chip is used in 34^[

• 10.74
  clock speed
  , compared to the 5A22's maximum of 3.58 MHz
• Faster
  RAM
  , including 2 KB of internal RAM
• Memory mapping
  capabilities
• Limited data storage and compression
• New DMA modes such as bitmap to bit plane transfer
• Arithmetic functions (multiplication, division, and cumulative)
• Hardware timer (either as a linear 18-bit timer, or synchronised with the PPU to generate an IRQ at a specific H/V scanline location)
• Built-in CIC lockout, for copy protection and regional marketing control

A data decompression chip designed by

The ST series of chips are used by SETA Corporation to enhance AI.

Used for general functions and handling the AI of opponent cars in F1 ROC II: Race of Champions. It contains a NEC μPD96050 DSP,^[10][25] clocked at 10Mhz.^[4]

ST011 is used for AI functionality in the shogi board game Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi. It also uses a NEC μPD96050,^[17] clocked at 15 Mhz.^[4]

The ST018 is used for AI functionality in Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi 2. It is a 21.44 MHz^[26] 32-bit ARMv3 processor,^[10][27] most likely an ARM60.^[28]

In 1995, BT ran a trial for BT Interactive TV in the UK which would allow users to download Super NES games. The BT GameCart was a Super NES Game Pak which included a Zilog Z8523310VSC serial communication controller and serial port to interface with the Apple Interactive Television Box.^{[29][30][31][32]}

• Memory management controller
  is the Nintendo Entertainment System's (NES) previous generation of enhancement chips.
• Super 8, an unlicensed peripheral which includes a NES on a chip