The existing low-temperature plasma technology has limitations of small discharge range and high discharge voltage, which is not suitable for the disinfection and sterilization of large-sized medical devices. In this article, a sterilization device is developed that generates large-area plasma at lower breakdown voltage values (atmospheric helium 325 V, and atmospheric air 585 V) and innovatively achieves gas discharge on the printed circuit board. Through the plasma simulation in COMSOL software and actual discharge experiment, the uniform glow discharge is achieved under both low and atmospheric pressure environment. The discharge experiment results show that the breakdown voltage is the lowest when the relative air pressure is in the range of - 70 to - 50 kPa. Through sterilization experiments, the sterilization efficiency of the generated plasma is verified, and the factors affecting the sterilization effect are explored. Results of the sterilization experiment show that the frequency of the power supply is the most critical factor affecting the sterilization effect, following by the sterilization time, which the helium pressure has minimal effect on sterilization. The complete sterilization can be achieved in 6 min for a certain concentration of Escherichia coli.