The configuration and mechanism of a microhollow cathode discharge (MHCD) is introduced in this paper. The focus is a new type of cold atmospheric large-area plasma source, the fused hollow cathode (FHC) plasma source based on radio frequency hollow cathodes. Through its applications and related research, we present the characteristics of the hollow cathode discharge and the factors on which its characteristics depend, such as the cathode material, gas specy, frequency, gas flow, pressure, inner diameter of cathode, and the like. Two other types of related MHCD systems are given in addition.