After over 20 years as a C program, the Electric development team recoded the system in Java. Versions 8.00 and up are Java (the last C release was version 7.00).

Electric in Java is more stable in many ways, has a better user interface, and in many cases is faster than Electric in C. Some parts were just recoded, but other parts were completely rewritten. For example, the redisplay code was completely redone, and now runs nearly 10 times faster for whole-chip display. The NCC is entirely new also, and runs much faster. The Logical Effort code is also rewritten, and is much more powerful.

You can read more about the translation from C to Java in this article which is on at the Java Website of Sun Microsystems.

There are a few special cases of things that existed in "C" Electric and were not translated into Java. These items are either unimportant or obsolete:

• Dracula interface Few use Dracula, and the interface consisted simply of writing CIF (which can still be done).
• nMOS PLA generation Nobody uses nMOS anymore.
• Splitting windows There is no need to split windows when you can simply display multiple windows.
• MOSIS CMOS stick figures Nobody used the stick-figures facility.
• Ability to disable differential ports on AND, OR, and XOR They are available all the time.
• The "cmosdodn" technology It is no longer used.