Abstract:Inductively coupled plasma (ICP) spectrometry is one of the most commonly used technique for inorganic elemental analysis. In this paper, the development history and main characteristics of ICP instruments were introduced. Some comments were made on the status of the ICP technology and some new developments for three commercial available ICP-AES instruments, including simultaneous ICP spectrometer，sequential scanning ICP spectrometer and sequential - simultaneous ICP with CCD spectrometer. A few novel spectrometer optical sources which have good application outlook, including static high sensitivity ICP（SHIP）optical source，high power microwave plasma source , capacitively coupled plasma source, and short length torch for sample injection inside the torch, were described.