In PCB manufacturing, Through Holes are drilled from the top and go completely through the bottom of a PCB, these holes can be plated (PTH) or non-plated (NPTH) of a printed circuit board or flexible printed circuit, these can be plated (PTH) or non-plated (NPTH). With plated through hole, there is a conductive path from one side of the board to the other, or, no conductive path.
Plated-Through Hole (PTH): The main characteristic of PTH is that, during the manufacturing process, after drilling, the boards a thin copper layer is plated onto the walls of the holes, providing them with electrical conductivity. In this way, after the PCB assembly manufacturing is finished, the link between the components’ leads and the copper traces has a lower resistance and better mechanical stability. Today, the most PCBs are double-sided, or multi-layered, and most of the through holes are plated. The components can connect to the required layers in the board. Plated-through holes can also be plated slots, plated half-holes (castellated holes), not always round in shape.
Non-Plated Through Hole (NPTH): From its name, this type of through holes no copper plated onto the walls of the holes, so the barrel of the hole has not electrical properties. They were very popular when printed circuits only has copper traces printed on one side, but their use decreased as the number of layers in PCBs increased. The main advantages of NPTH are that the manufacturing process for these simpler, and obviously quicker. Nowadays, they are frequently, but not exclusively, used as Tooling/Mounting holes: used to fix the PCB to its operational location. However, they can also be used for components mounting in some PCBs, like single-sided.
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