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High speed design requires that there not be stubs in the via which could create signal integrity issues due to reflections. Thus, uVia (micro-via), buried via, blind via and back drilled through hole via can all be used in place of normal through hole via.

Now the question is, are all these via types only relevant to high speed board design or they are useful elsewhere as well?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Extremely high density/space constrained designs where you would want to free up board space over a buried or blind via or escape traces out from under a BGA come to mind. \$\endgroup\$
    – vir
    Nov 20 at 19:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ I see, so the issue comes to HDI. I am still to learn about exactly constitutes high denstity interconnect boards. \$\endgroup\$
    – quantum231
    Nov 20 at 19:21

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Back-drilled vias are typically relevant for high-speed designs only. That's because they are relatively expensive and don't offer any other significant advantages apart from reducing signal integrity issues caused by via stubs.

The other types are usually used in high-density designs to free up space for routing/placement. Of course, a high-density design could also be a high-speed design. In this case the other types provide similar advantages as back-drilled vias (no or smaller via stub).

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Why would someone go for back drilled vias when there are also exist the uVia, blind and buried via? Does not make sense. \$\endgroup\$
    – quantum231
    Nov 21 at 13:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ Micro, blind, and buried vias are constrained by manufacturing issues like aspect ratio and number of lamination cycles. Back drilled vias aren't. \$\endgroup\$
    – feynman
    Nov 21 at 14:17
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Not just for high speed.

If you have a very fine pitched BGA case IC with large amount of pins, it will be difficult to "fan out" the signals away from the IC.

However, such large ICs tend to be intended for high speed signals, so they may relate.

An interesting twist is, as there is pressure to make everything smaller, and even if fast signals benefit from ICs being packaged into small packages with small pitch, it also means you need to use more tricks that make the PCB harder and more expensive to manufacture. Such as more layers to be able to route the signals, and microvias, buried vias, blind vias. And backdrilled vias if preventing stubs is important for very high speed signals.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I noticed that all manufacturers don't support uVia, blind, buried and backdrilled vias. So this made me wonder if this stuff is only required for niche applications. And yes, they appera to be rather expensive. \$\endgroup\$
    – quantum231
    Nov 20 at 19:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ One issue is that cheap prototype/low volume services rely on "pooling" multiple customers PCBs into the same panels. That only works if the number of customers is sufficiant and the customers want the same specification. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 21 at 9:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ If different customers want different combinations of layer thicknesses, via types and so-on then each customers order needs to be manufactured seperately and that pushes up the cost for prototypes and low volume orders. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 21 at 9:19

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