Through hole and via hole technology in PCB

Through-hole PCB technology almost completely replaced earlier electronics assembly techniques such as point-to-point construction. From the second generation of computers in the 1950s until surface-mount technology became popular in the late 1980s, every component on a typical PCB was a through-hole component.

Mounting electronic components by leads inserted through holes on one side of the board and soldered onto copper traces on the other side. Boards may be single-sided, with an un-plated component side, or more compact double-sided boards, with components soldered on both sides. Horizontal installation of through-hole parts with two axial leads (such as resistors, capacitors, and diodes) is done by bending the leads 90 degrees in the same direction, inserting the part in the board (often bending leads located on the back of the board in opposite directions to improve the part's mechanical strength), soldering the leads, and trimming off the ends. Leads may be soldered either manually or by a wave soldering machine.

Through-hole manufacture adds to board cost by requiring many holes to be drilled accurately, and limits the available routing area for signal traces on layers immediately below the top layer on multi-layer boards since the holes must pass through all layers to the opposite side. Once surface-mounting came into use, small-sized SMD components were used where possible, with through-hole mounting only of components unsuitably large for surface-mounting due to power requirements or mechanical limitations, or subject to mechanical stress which might damage the PCB.

Another common hole is PCB is Vias, It refers to one kind of vias which is plated through and then filled with conductive or un-conductive material. These vias is finally plated over with copper. Via in Pad can save PCB spacing and also provides a direct conduit for heat transfer.