Teardrop (electronics)

A teardrop is typically drop-shaped feature on a printed circuit board and can be found on the junction of vias or contact pads.

The main purpose of teardrops is to enhance structural integrity in presence of thermal or mechanical stresses,[1][2][3] for example due to vibration or flexing.

[4] Structural integrity may be compromised, e.g., by misalignment during drilling, so that too much copper may be removed by the drill hole in the area where a trace connects to the pad or via.

While a typical shape of a teardrop is straight-line tapering, they may be concave.

[3] To produce a snowman-shaped teardrop, a secondary pad of smaller size is added at the junction overlapping with the primary pad (hence the nickname).