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Source: Yamaha FS1R

The Yamaha FS1R is a sound synthesizer module, manufactured by the Yamaha Corporation from 1998 to 2000. Based on Formant synthesis, it also has FM synthesis capabilities similar to the DX range. Its editing involves 2,000+ parameters in any one 'performance', prompting the creation of a number of third party freeware programming applications. These applications provide the tools needed to program the synth which were missing when it was in production by Yamaha. The synth was discontinued after two years, probably in part due to its complexity (particularly the formant sequencing), poor front-panel controls, brief manual and limited polyphony.
The FS1R synthesizer has an impressive set of new wave forms over the earlier DX line of FM synthesizers, which have since been incorporated into the new Montage line from Yamaha (with the exception of the Formant wave form). These wave forms include Sine, All1, All2, Odd1, Odd2, Res1, Res2, and Formant. The new wave forms are each constructed with a large number of inherent harmonics making FM synthesis far more efficient. Each one of these operator wave forms can replace an entire column of operators in a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer algorithm.
Formants are mainly associated with modeling the human voice, but have other uses as well. Formants are present in all instruments that use a resonating body, like the violin, viola, cello, bass viol, bassoon, saxophone, English horn, clarinet, oboe, acoustic guitar, etc. The fixed body of the instrument acts like a set of fixed frequency band pass filters, which is what a formant is. The resonating body instrument was previously very difficult to model using the DX7 family of FM synthesizers, and lacked authentic real instrument patches. FS1R's formant wave form capabilities allows users to access more realistic sounds absent from other models at the time. This capability is largely unknown due to the path synthesizer development has taken, the sample-based synthesizers has bypassed the need for combining formant synthesis with FM.
Sample-based synths limit the user to a set of preset instrument patches, the user can't create their own instrument from scratch to create a custom new sound. The FM style of synthesizer has this capability and is drawing a new set of users to the older technology. The new FM-X synth engine in the Yamaha Montage is based on features from the FS1R.