By studying the bright discharge phenomenon in the sputtering process and the deposition rate of the AlN films, it was found that an instable AlN layer was formed on the target surface with increasing the N 2 concentration. Since the sputtering rate of AlN target was very lower than that of the Al target, the deposition rate of AlN films was decreased rapidly. At the meantime, the effects of other experimental parameters on the deposition rate have been studied. The results shown that the deposition rate decreased with increasing the distance ( D ) from target to substrate and decreasing target power, whereas the deposition rate reached a extremum with increasing sputtering pressure from 03 Pa to 12 Pa.