The Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA, until 1997 Electronic Industries Association) is a trade organization composed as an alliance of trade associations for electronics manufacturers in the United States. Those associations in turn govern sectors of EIA standards activity.
The associations are:
- Formerly CEA – The Consumer Electronics Association (As of January 1, 2005 CEA withdrew from its sector affiliation with EIA)
- ECA – The Electronic Components, Assemblies, and Materials Association
- GEIA – The Government Electronics and Information Technology Association
- JEDEC – The JEDEC Solid State Technology division, formerly Joint Electron Devices Engineering Councils
- TIA – The Telecommunications Industry Association
EIA is accredited by ANSI to help develop standards on electronic components, consumer electronics, electronic information, telecommunications, and Internet security. The recommended standards (formerly designated as RS-#, currently EIA-#) are designed so that manufacturer’s equipment can be interchanged and compatible. Prior to 1957, EIA was known as the Radio Electronics Television Manufacturing Association (RETMA). A comprehensive history of the development of EIA is found on the JEDEC history page.
Well known EIA standards include:
- RS-170 (a backward compatible extension of NTSC)
- RS-232, EIA-422, RS-449, EIA-485 for serial data communications
- EIA-708 (a closed captioning standard for ATSC)
- RS-279 electronic color code
