The performance of a substrate heater/manipulator designed to address reliability and vacuum quality issues is discussed. The manipulator employs a novel, hollow magnetic feedthrough which is directly coupled to the substrate cradle, thus eliminating a gear train between the two. The need for only twoinvacuobearings enhances reliability, with a total of 5×106rotations accumulated to date without degradation in performance. Negligible increases in residual gas species, most notably CO, are found with either rotation (a severe problem with previous designs employing gear trains) or heating.