Multi-board Improvements

At Altium, we are constantly striving to make our software more comprehensive to help increase our users' productivity. In this release, there are a number of improvements and enhancements to functionality for multi-board projects. This document describes these improvements.

Creating a BOM from a Multi-board Assembly

This release sees the introduction of BOMs for Multi-board assemblies. You no longer need to generate individual BOMs for each PCB in the assembly then merge them in a spreadsheet editor. Now you can add a BomDoc to your multi-board project and generate a BOM for the entire assembly. To create a BOM from an MBA, you must update each of the PCBs in each of the PCB projects to ensure the PCB components include the Part Choice information (Design » Update PCB). This Part Choice information must also be brought into the multi-board assembly (*.MbaDoc) by running the Edit » Update All Parts command in the multi-board assembly editor. When this has been done, the Part Choice information will appear in the MBA BomDoc.

Special Parameters in the BOM

The following special parameters have been added to support multi-board BOMs: ModuleAssembly, ModuleDesignator, ModuleSource, and ModuleTitle. Use these to configure the BOM to suit your company's needs.

Exporting PDF3D Documents

Altium Designer 20.0 includes the ability to export Multi-board Assembly documents (*.MbaDoc) as PDF3D documents. To export an MBA document, choose File » Export » PDF3D from the main menus.

To set up a PDF3D output from an Outjob file (*.OutJob), click [Add New Documentation Output] under the Documentation Outputs region then choose PDF3D MBA from the menu then select the desired MBA document.

You can then set up your output in the Output Containers region.

All PCB Component Parameters Now Stored in the Multi-board Assembly Document

With this release, all PCB component parameters are now stored in the Multi-board Assembly document (*MbaDoc).

Bill of Materials Output Support

A Bill of Materials can now be created as an outjob for a multi-board project. To add a Bill of Materials output, in an outjob file, right click on [Add New Report Output] under Report Outputs then select Bill of Materials.