Because Electric captures connectivity information during design, there is no need for "node extraction", the process of extracting connectivity from layout. However, there are situations where a circuit has only layout and no connectivity, specifically when a circuit has been read into Electric from CIF, GDS, or other formats that have no connectivity information in them (see Section 3-9-2).

When CIF, GDS, and other foreign file formats are read into Electric, the cells they create are composed entirely of pure-layer nodes (see Section 7-1-1). These nodes appear to represent the circuit correctly, and can even be written back out to CIF or GDS correctly. But the missing connectivity information means that Electric cannot properly analyze these circuits (cannot do DRC, simulation, etc.)

The solution is to convert this geometry into properly connected components. To convert the current cell into connected geometry, use the Extract Current Cell command (from menu Tools / Network). To convert the current cell and all subcells, use the Extract Current Hierarchy command. Electric creates new versions of the layout cells that have higher-level nodes and arcs in them.

Although the process of converting layout into connectivity information is difficult, it can usually be done correctly. In Electric, this process is complicated by the fact that the resulting connectivity information must be expressed as a set of "high-level" primitives (transistors and contacts) which have their own ways of appearing in the layout. Therefore, it is not always possible to extract layout precisely. For example, the design rules for a transistor typically require that polysilicon extend beyond the gate area by 2 units, so transistor primitives typically have this extra geometry built into them. But what would happen if the geometry to be extracted extends by 3 units? Electric adds an extra 1-unit arc to fill-out the geometry that it finds. Worse yet, what would happen if the geometry extends by only 1 unit? Electric simply cannot represent this with its primitives. It will create the transistor, but it will no longer match the original geometry. In general, the system attempts to create high-level primitives that mimic the original geometry. It often leaves small pure-layer nodes behind to complete the extraction. As an aid in debugging the extraction process, these extra pure-layer nodes are highlighted in the resulting cell.

Control of node extraction is done with the Network User Preferences (in menu File / Preferences..., "Tools" section, "Network" tab).

"Grid-align geometry before extraction" causes all coordinates to be adjusted so that they are on grid units (see Section 4-7-2). This is useful for data that has precision problems.

"Approximate cut placement" relaxes the requirement that the cut (or via) locations appear exactly in the same place, once extracted. When this preference is checked, Electric will find contact areas and replace them with contact nodes regardless of where those nodes place the cuts. Without this preference, Electric will place contact nodes in such a way that the cut layers land in the correct original locations. The disadvantage of forcing exact cut placement is that Electric will create many contact nodes, one for each cut layer. In multi-cut situations, this may be many more nodes than are necessary.

"Ignore polygons smaller than" limits the size of extracted polygons. When unusual geometries are extracted, there can be many tiny polygons needed to fill in gaps. By default, any polygon smaller than 1/4 unit in area is ignored.

Active and implant regions can be handled in a number of different ways, depending on the way that these layers are defined in the original CIF/GDS.

- "Require separate N and P active; require proper select/well" assumes that there are distinct N and P active layers being extracted and that they are surrounded by the proper select and well layers. Extraction is easiest when all of this information is guaranteed to be correct.
- "Ignore N vs. P active; require proper select/well" assumes that there is only one active layer for N and P regions and so the correct select and well implants will be used to determine the type of active.
- "Require separate N and P active; ignore select/well" assumes that the N and P active layers are correct, but that the implant regions are not N/P distinct and must be derived from the active information.

"Flatten cells whose names match this" is a way to automatically flatten the hierarchy when extracting. This is useful in situations where parts of a node are encapsulated in subcells. For example, some designers place all via layers into a subcell, and construct all contacts with instances of these cells. The node extractor does not examine subcells when extracting, and so it will not detect the contacts. By placing the subcell names into this field, the extractor will extract those cells and find the contacts. Note that wildcards can be used here.

"Flatten Cadence Pcells" requests that Cadence Pcells be flattened without having to list their names. Cadence Pcells can be recognized by the fact that their cell name ends with "$$" and a number.