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Product Structure

AP 210 represents the physical and functional hierarchy of electronic products using a structured product model.

Assembly Hierarchy

Electronic products are hierarchical:

System
  └── Board Assembly (PCA)
        ├── Printed Circuit Board (PCB)
        ├── Component 1 (IC Package)
        │     ├── Die
        │     ├── Substrate
        │     └── Leadframe
        ├── Component 2 (Resistor)
        └── Component 3 (Connector)

Core Entities

AP 210 uses the following STEP entities to model product structure:

  • product - The top-level product definition

  • product_definition_formation - A specific version of a product

  • product_definition - A specific view of a product version

  • product_definition_relationship - Relationships between product definitions

  • next_assembly_usage_occurrence - An occurrence of a component in an assembly

Physical vs. Functional Structure

AP 210 distinguishes between:

Physical Structure

The physical hierarchy describes how components are physically assembled:

  • Where each component is placed on the board

  • How layers stack up in the PCB

  • The physical connectivity between components

Functional Structure

The functional hierarchy describes what the product does:

  • Functional decomposition into sub-functions

  • Signal flow between functional units

  • Logical connectivity independent of physical implementation

To traverse an AP 210 product structure:

  1. Start from a product_definition with context "design"

  2. Find next_assembly_usage_occurrence relationships

  3. For each occurrence, navigate to the component’s product_definition

  4. Repeat recursively for sub-assemblies

  5. Access shape, material, and property data at each level