Layout is done by placing and wiring electrical components. Although this is standard practice for schematics, it is unusual for chip layout. However, because of this style of design, Electric understands chip layout at a more sophisticated level, and can aid in design to an unprecedented degree.

The user interface is quite sophisticated and runs on all popular workstations (Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX). It also provides interpretive languages for advanced users.

The most interesting feature of the system is its global enforcement of connectivity which provides top-down design capability and ease of post-design modifications.

Electric’s Analysis and Synthesis Tools
Electric has many analysis tools, including design-rule checking, simulation, and network comparison. Electric has many synthesis tools, including routing, compaction, silicon compilation, PLA generation, and compensation.

Design-Rule Checking
The incremental design-rule checker watches all changes made to the layout and displays error messages when violations are detected. It checks for spacing errors, notch errors, and minimum size violations.

A hierarchical design-rule checker does a thorough check of the circuit.

Electric can also read the output of Assura or Calibre and display the results.

Electrical-Rule Checking
The electrical-rule checker has two parts:

Check all well and substrate areas for proper contacts and spacings.
Antenna-rules check for fabrication validation. 

Simulation
Electric comes with a built-in 12-state switch-level simulator, called ALS. An optional IRSIM simulation engine is available separately from Static Free Software. The simulator displays waveforms in a separate window and lets users cross-probe from either the waveform or the circuit window.

Simulation Interface
Electric is able to produce input decks for a number of popular simulators, including:

Device-level simulators such as Spice and Epic.
Switch-level simulators such as Silos, Tegas, IRSIM, ESIM, RSIM, RNL, Cosmos, and Mossim.
Behavioral-level simulators such as Verilog.
Miscellaneous simulators such as PALs.
Users of Electric must obtain these simulators on their own.