Electronic Industries Alliance

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The Electronic Industries Alliance ( EIA ) was an American business association that developed a number of important standards to ensure that devices from different manufacturers can work together. The association as such dissolved at the end of 2010, but the tasks will continue to be carried out by the individual organizations.

history

SCART socket with EIA designation

In 1924, the US radio manufacturers merged under the name Associated Radio Manufacturers , to be renamed the Radio Manufacturers Association (RMA) in the same year . The boom in electronics brought new tasks, new members and corresponding name changes: 1950 in Radio Television Manufacturers Association ( RTMA ), 1953 in Radio Electronics Television Manufacturers Association ( RETMA ) and 1957 in Electronic Industries Association ( EIA ). In 1997 the last name was changed to Electronic Industries Alliance ( EIA) instead of; this reflected the development away from the pure manufacturer association.

The association's headquarters were in Arlington , Virginia. Most recently the following organizations belonged to the association:

• ECA - Electronic Components, Assemblies, Equipment & Supplies Association
• JEDEC - JEDEC Solid State Technology Association , formerly Joint Electron Device Engineering Councils
• GEIA - (now to TechAmerica), Government Electronics and Information Technology Association
• TIA - Telecommunications Industry Association
• CEA - Consumer Electronics Association

At the beginning of 2011, the business association dissolved. The individual organizations continue the corresponding tasks. The EIA standards will in future be administered by the ECA, but the name will also disappear, since the ECA merged with the National Electronic Distributors Association (NEDA) to form the new Electronic Components Industry Association (ECIA).

Standards

The EIA has produced a large number of important standards and norms , e.g. B. RS-232 as the standard for modem connections worldwide and EIA-422 (formerly RS-422), RS-423 and EIA-485 (formerly RS-485).

The change in function and name of the association was also reflected in the names of these standards and continues to cause confusion today.

Originally the standards were identified with the prefix RS- (for Recommended Standard ) and a number.

In later years, the EIA identified new standards and new versions of existing standards with the prefix EIA . When the TIA was founded, the prefix TIA was used for communication standards, and after the TIA came under the EIA, it was EIA / TIA . The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the US agency for standardization, accredited the EIA and later the TIA and the standards are therefore officially given the prefix ANSI EIA or ANSI EIA / TIA .

As a result, a single standard, such as the well-known standard 232 for the serial interface , optionally RS-232 , EIA-232 , TIA-232 , EIA / TIA-232 , ANSI EIA-232 , ANSI EIA / TIA-232 , and to be called so on. What is on the standard is of course formally correct: The current version of the 232 standard is ANSI EIA / TIA-232-F-1997 , the one from 1969 is called RS-232-C . The suffix -F or -C indicates the version of the standard, followed by the year for newer versions.

The EIA was also the initiator and co-founder of the Internet Security Alliance .

Web links

• Example explanation of standards (RS-422 and RS-485) in an Application Note from Texas Instruments, accessed on February 27, 2011 (PDF; 264 kB)

Footnotes

1. ↑ ^{a b} EIA website ( Memento from July 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from January 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )