Fast breaker signal processing for surface treatment of materials

During a plasma processing cycle the gas discharge stability problem arises. In general, from the point of view of an automatic process control, two types of instabilities appear. The actual plasma instability caused by a stochastic glow-to-arc transition and the second one which is attributed to the so called hollow cathode effect. In order to get maximum flexibility of process parameters which must allow the treatment of various shaped samples, the plasma nitriding process is governed in a very narrow range of glow discharge voltage-current characteristics, the so called abnormal glow discharge range. In the case of the spontaneous glow-to-arc transition, called the arcing process, serious damage of the sample surface results. A particular micro-electronic device is described whose main role is to prevent the arcing and to stabilize the process during a plasma nitriding cycle.