A micro needle-to-cylinder corona discharge structure was designed to integrate an ambient ion source and a micro air pump. By needle-to-cylinder discharge photos and Trichel discharge waveform recorded with a digital camera and an oscilloscope respectively, it verified that the stable corona discharge of needle-to-cylinder structure could be realized without external air flows and with only 2 mm distance between need and cylinder. The corona discharge characteristics of the needle-to-cylinder structure were researched and the influence of experimental parameters, like discharge voltages, ballasting resistor, the diameter of cylinder and the distance between the needle and cylinder, on the corona discharge was discussed. By analysis of the volt-ampere characteristic curves, it shows that the max velocity ionic wind can be gotten in a discharge voltage of -3 800 V, a discharge resistor of 10 MΩ, a cylinder diameter of 4 mm, and the distance between the need and cylinder of 2 mm. Moreover, the max air flow velocity is 1.15 m/s measured by the test 405-V1 anemometer. The needle-to-cylinder structure can be fabricated by Micro-electro-mechanical System(MEMS) technology, and may be used in the portable analytical instruments to realize the double functions of ambient ion source and micro air pump, such as mass spectrometry, ion mobility spectrometry, and high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry.