Abstract: An automatic manufacturing system receives a semiconductor substrate with etched patterns, loads it onto a chuck in a chamber which is then evacuated. Plasma etching cleans the substrate, then coated with adhesion and nucleation seed layers. A reactor selectively connected, adjacent to the chamber sublimes a precursor of the metal, which is then transported to the substrate. A reactor heat transfer system provides selective reactor cooling and heating above and below the precursor sublimation temperature under the control of programmable software. The heated chuck heats the substrate above the dissociation temperature of the precursor, releasing the metal from the precursor onto the substrate to nucleate the metal species onto the seed layer on the substrate. Then the system is pumped to a lower pressure after expiration of each period of sublimation, and the substrate is advanced to the next chamber, released from the chuck and returned to its original cassette.