electronics industry association (EIA)

The Electronics Industry Association (EIA) is the U.S. umbrella organization for manufacturers of electronic equipment and devices. The association is responsible for developing and maintaining industry standards for interfaces between data processing equipment and data communications equipment.

Members are industry representatives who have an interest in developing standards as a common basis for products between manufacturers and users. In the area of open communications, EIA has been intensively involved with the two lowest layers of the OSI reference model. Well known are the various RS standards for interfaces, such as RS-232-C. In the context of Manufacturing Automation Protocol( MAP), Electronics Industry Association (EIA) also dealt with applications as early as the 1980s and developed RS-511 for this purpose.