System and method for voltage-based plasma excursion detection

A system for detecting plasma excursions in a plasma chamber, comprising:

• one or more voltage probes, each voltage probe configured to attach to a radio frequency electrode within a plasma chamber and sense a bias voltage of the radio frequency electrode during plasma processing;
• and
• a plasma excursion detection unit, comprising:
• one or more excursion detection modules, wherein each excursion detection module is configured to receive the bias voltage from one of the one or more voltage probes, wherein each excursion detection module comprises a plurality of analog filters arranged to filter the bias voltage to obtain an output voltage signal, and wherein each excursion module further comprises a comparator configured to compare the output voltage signal to a preset voltage signal and generate an alarm signal if the output voltage signal exceeds the preset voltage signal;
• one or more connection ports configured to receive the preset voltage signal from a host controller and configured to send the alarm signal to the host controller;
• and
• a data acquisition module configured to collect and transfer the output voltage signal from each of the one or more excursion detection modules to a data logging and diagnostic system.