Chip Importance
Microchips discretely mounted on toner cartridges are now standard operating procedure in the printer consumable business today. Various functionalities and implications abound due to their ever-increasing presence on the toner supplies. Chip usage has become so important to the remanufacturing industry, that it has now spawned an entire new business niche segment—cartridge chip manufacturers!

Early Chip Development: The First
The ECO Elite engineering team cut its teeth on the first ever "lockout" cartridge chip. When Lexmark released the Optra Se and T printer series, it dropped a bomb on the remanufacturing industry and sent a clear message of the OEM strategy and nature of our industry to come. There were no aftermarket chip answers available to enable the remanufacturing of this particular product. The industry was "locked out." And since Lexmark was only a "niche" player then, the industry's raw material suppliers were not willing to invest in the difficult task of reverse-engineering a chip for the new Lexmark chipped printers.

However, the Lexmark segment was a large part of ECO Elite sales, and out of necessity the engineering team was commissioned to delevelop a solution. A large part of the ECO Elite future and direction was on the line. After 10 months of development, 17 months after the release of the Optra T printer, the ECO Elite engineering team released the first technical solution to market. The ECO Elite team developed the Optra T chip solution not for resale, but out of necessity to enable the future growth of the Lexmark product line. Of course, competitor chip options soon followed, and the flledgling chip market was off to a roaring start.

Today, our industry contains numerous chip options and publicity. The ECO Elite technical team spends less time on investigating chip development technology and more on ensuring we are manufacturing the finest products in the market with the best raw materials available. Our expertise is there when needed in the ever-changing industry landscape. But our business focus is manufacturing quality printing consumables, not developing chips for mass resale.

ECO Elite Cartridge Chips
Rest assured, all ECO Elite cartridges contain the most advanced microchips available to ensure optimum performance. ECO Elite’s philosophy is to offer 100% compatible cartridges, with the highest quality and functionality available on the market. All ECO Elite cartridges are intentionally manufactured with a chip, if they were originally chipped by the OEM*. Simple solution. This is done to minimize any potential problems for users, and offer a true OEM compatible cartridge. ECO Elite uses premium aftermarket printer chips that function as the original, giving the user a seamless transition in function and usability from the original cartridge.

*When the option is available, some manufacturers rebuild cartridges without replacing a chip, to save cost, but this often foregoes some sort of printer or cartridge functionality.