Top all-time · #10935
Sierra Circuits
Company blog · protoexpress.com/bloghardware
Sierra Circuits is the company blog at protoexpress.com, writing about hardware. Since 2010, 7 different Hacker News readers have linked it 7 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-08, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
This is the blog of PCB maker Sierra Circuits, with posts on PCB design-for-manufacturing issues, IPC soldering standards and PCIe signal integrity. Commenters link it as reference material.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Since 1986, Sierra Circuits has been an industry leader in PCB prototype manufacturing, optimization, and assembly.
What Hacker News says?
There are US PCB makers who do prototypes. Sierra Circuits [1] is in Sunnyvale, CA. Pentalogix is near Portland, OR.[2] But 5 small boards will cost about US$75 each. [1] https://www.protoexpress.com [2] https://www.pentalogix.com/
Comment linking /
on “Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong”Submitted Wire Bonding: An Efficient Interconnection Technique as a story · 2 points
HN discussionElectrons (or should I say holes) dont care. On the other hand less sharp angles means less danger of over-etching. https://www.protoexpress.com/blog/dfm-issues-pcb-manufacturi...
Comment linking /blog/dfm-issues-pcb-manufacturing/
on “Melting KiCad”Submitted The Building of the Internet of Underwater Things (2018) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIf you’re wanting to get really serious, there are certification classes. For example, the “j standard” classes are pretty detailed. https://www.protoexpress.com/blog/ipc-j-std-001-standard-sol... There are some open source documents that can help you understand the difference between good and not-so-good work. Eg https://nepp.nasa.gov/docuploads/06AA01BA
Comment linking /blog/ipc-j-std-001-standard-soldering-requirements/
on “Ask HN: Resources to get good at soldering?”I can recommend ExpressPCB, PCBExpress, and Sierra Circuits ProtoExpress ( http://www.protoexpress.com/ ) here. ProtoExpress, in particular, was pretty good in terms of price, specs (minimum trace/space, hole size, ability to do 4-layer boards), and turnaround time. If you want to do something super-simple, ExpressPCB ( http://www.expresspcb.com/ ) is a PCB prototyping house that has their own free Windows CAD tool…
Comment linking /
on “Build a Custom-Printed Circuit Board”PCIe can only go to like 14 inches in trace length, and that's already challenging enough to do for risers and extender cables without compromising signal integrity. [1] https://www.protoexpress.com/blog/pci-express/
Comment linking /blog/pci-express/
on “Asus details its cable-free GC-HPWR connector for 600W gaming GPUs”
