SMT vs. Through-Hole Technology – Which is better in terms of cost, assembly and reliability? This debate has been going on for several years.

The advantages of SMT or surface mount technology over through-hole technology are in design and manufacturing. Surface mount components or SMD components are small in size and can be mounted on either side of an SMT PCB and are widely used by electronics companies.

Let’s discuss the pros and cons of SMT vs. through-hole technology in detail.

SMT vs. Through-Hole – Advantages of Surface Mount Technology

The most important benefits or advantages related to the design include significant savings in weight and space (PCB size) as well as reduced electrical noise. SMD components can be as little as one-tenth the weight of traditional through-hole/through-hole electronic components. This can significantly reduce the weight of surface mount assemblies ( SMA ). Due to their smaller size, surface mount components only take up about half to one-third of the space on different types of PCBs. This makes mobile phones, tablets, laptops and other such devices smaller and thinner.

SMT also offers better resistance to shock and vibration due to the lighter weight of SMD components. Surface mount components have shorter lead lengths, which offer the advantages of lower parasitics, less propagation delays, and less package noise.

Manufacturing Advantages of Surface Mount Technology Over Through-Hole Technology
In addition to design advantages, SMT also brings many manufacturing advantages to PCB manufacturing companies. These benefits include lower PCB material costs, lower material handling costs, and control over the manufacturing process.

With fewer traces, board size is reduced and the number of drill holes is reduced. The smaller the circuit board size, the fewer holes need to be drilled, and the cost will naturally be lower.

Increasing package pitch by reducing surface mount components and reducing the number of drill holes may also reduce the number of printed circuit board layers if the functionality of the surface mount board is not increased. This in turn reduces circuit board costs.

SMT vs. Through-Hole – Disadvantages of SMT vs. Through-HoleSMT vs. Through-Hole – Disadvantages of SMT vs. Through-Hole
Since not all basic electronic components are available for surface mounting, the actual area savings on the board will depend on the percentage of through-hole components replaced by surface mount components. The three types of surface mount offer varying degrees of benefit depending on the component combination.

The above advantages of surface mount technology do not necessarily mean that SMT assembly is always less expensive. It depends on when and how SMT is used.

KKPCB conducts research on special processing technologies such as ordinary double-sided boards, thick copper circuit boards, high-frequency circuit boards, HDI circuit boards, rigid-flexible circuit boards, FPC flexible boards, buried blind hole circuit boards, and IC carrier boards. Provides PCB design, PCB layout, PCB prototyping and PCB assembly services.