ECA Acquires Carts Forum; Purchase By Electronic Components Association Will Expand Breadth of Annual Industry Symposium.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 7, 2004

The Electronic Components, Assemblies and Materials Association (ECA) has acquired CARTS, the leading technology conference and exposition for passive components.

CARTS USA 2004, the 24th Capacitor and Resistor Technology Symposium, will be held March 29 to April 1 in San Antonio, Texas. CARTS Europe will be held October 18 to 21 in Nice, France.

ECA purchased CARTS from the Components Technology Institute (CTI). CTI will continue to manage CARTS during the next two years as ECA takes an increasingly more active role. ECA and CTI will establish a CARTS advisory board that will include officers from both organizations and senior-level executives from leading electronic component companies.

"It is critical that CARTS continues as the premier meeting place for the passive components industry," says Leon Hamiter, the show's founder and CTI president. "ECA has the membership connections, the conference experience, and the reputation within the worldwide resistor and capacitor community to ensure the health and vitality of CARTS into the future."

CARTS will benefit from ECA's extended reach into the electronics industry, according to James Kaplan, chairman of Cornell Dubilier and ECA industry vice president.

"CARTS will not only have the support of the major passive electronic components companies that are members of ECA, it will also benefit from ECA's role in the Electronic Industries Alliance, which reaches across all sectors of the electronics industry."

Bob Willis, ECA president, believes that ECA is the perfect fit for CARTS.

"CARTS complements our other conferences and our ongoing engineering, standards and marketing activities," says Willis. "We expect to bring in support for CARTS from other sectors that participate in ECA, including variable resistors, sensors, ultra capacitors, transformers and piezoelectric devices. ECA sees great potential for accelerating CARTS' growth in terms of size, scope and quality."

CARTS will join an ECA conference line-up that includes the International Relay Conference (IRC), the Electronic Distribution Show (EDS), the Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC), and the International Wire and Cable Symposium (IWCS).

The Electronic Components, Assemblies & Materials Association (ECA) represents manufacturers and producers of passive and active electronic components, component arrays and assemblies, and materials and support services. It is a sector of the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA), comprising more than 2,100 members that represent 80 percent of the $430 billion U.S. electronics industry. ECA members benefit from a dynamic link into a network of programs and activities in areas such as business and technical information, market research trends and analysis, access to industry and government leaders, technical and education training, and others. For more information, visit www.ec-central.org.