Recently, electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) discharges have been successfully applied to numerous ion source applications. These range from accelerator to etching and thin film deposition applications, and have strong potential for application in several commercial/industrial processes. Thus, new design requirements related to process automation and control are now imposed on plasma source design. Internal cavity tuning methods for excitation and impedance matching and ECR discharge control are presented. These impedance matching methods utilize a variable cavity end plate and an adjustable coupling probe to provide the two independent adjustments required to match the discharge loaded cavity applicator. Both end feed and side feed coupling create a well matched plasma source but the end feed excitation produces the most efficient (∼220–230 eV/ion) and most uniform (1&sgr;=2.5%) discharge. Control of internal tuning can serve not only to match discharge impedance, but with the proper control can also avoid hysteresis and multiple steady states and jumps in plasma source outputs. Adjusting the internal cavity tuning to always produce a slight mismatch helps insure a stable and repeatable discharge operation.