China has developed and marketed the country's first batch of powerful system chips that can be used in communication equipment and terminals, China's Ministry of Science and Technology announced Thursday.

Ma Songde, vice-minister of Science and Technology, told reporters the chip, known as COMIP system chip, will break the monopoly on the Chinese telecommunications market held by a group of overseas companies.

A high-performance embedded central processing unit and a digital signal processor have been integrated into the chip, which is capable of processing up to 500 million instructions per second,

said the vice-minister.

He said the progress is of great importance for the development of the country's electronic and telecommunications sectors.

The chip was developed by Datang Micro-electronic Technology Co. in cooperation with Zhejiang University and other institutions.

The development was funded by the country's high-tech development and commercialization program run by the ministry.

The Chinese-made chip is more power-efficient than similar foreign-manufactured products. It can be used in complete sets of communication equipment and terminals, according to experts involved in the development program.

The chip has been used in mobile phone sets, videophone sets and other consumer electronic goods launched by Datang, the country's biggest integrated circuit designing firm.

(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2004)