Chiptune is a style of electronic music where all sounds are created using vintage computers, arcade machines, calculators or video game console sound chips. The term has also been used to describe music that sounds like genuine chip music but that is created using more advanced technology, such as software emulators. Vintage chips provide a small number of channels to work with, each creating a different sound wave. For example, the chip in the Nintendo Entertainment System has 5 channels: two pulse waves, one triangle wave, one white noise channel, and one DPCM channel which was also capable of pulse-code modulation (PCM) sound. Composers developed techniques to overcome limitations of the chips, such as using fast arpeggios to mimic chords.

It has been described as "an interpretation of many genres" since any existing song can be arranged in a chiptune style defined more by choice of instrument and timbre than specific style elements.

Chiptune has tons of styles and subgenres such as: 8-bit, 16-bit, 64-bit, chipbreak, chipstep, bitpop, chipwave, bitcore, experimental chiptune, chiphop and more.