(Yicai) Oct. 30 -- China’s first reconfigurable fifth-generation radio frequency transceiver chip, which beefs up the country’s self-reliance in 5G, has gone on show at an online store on Alibaba’s marketplace Taobao, though it is not yet for sale.

A Pofeng 8676 chip developed by China Mobile can be seen on the Guozi Xiaoxin e-store run by an agency under China’s state-owned assets manager. Other product prototypes, such as the world’s largest shaft boring machine developed by China Railway Construction, are also showcased there.

Reconfigurable transceiver chips enable high-speed conversion between analog and digital signals, an industry insider told Yicai. The architecture is reconfigurable, meaning that core specifications, module algorithms, and functions can be repurposed, helping a single chip serve multiple purposes thereby cutting costs and enabling scalability, the person said.

The Pofeng 8676 supports band widths between 1.7 gigahertz and 6 GHz, and is compatible with the world’s mainstream 4G/5G and WiFi frequencies as well as China’s Internet of Vehicles frequencies.

The China Mobile Research Institute released the chip at the end of August. The telecom giant’s  research division has devised a reconfigurable technical architecture by way of system integration that breaks through the bottleneck of single-point performance chips.

But the Pofeng 8676 is not yet on the market. Earlier this month, Beijing-based China Mobile linked arms with equipment makers such as ZTE, Comba, and Ruijie to promote its commercial use.

Editor: Kim Taylor