A workpiece carrier is described for a plasma processing chamber that has isolated heater plate blocks. In one example, a plasma processing system has a plasma chamber, a plasma source electrically coupled with a showerhead included within the plasma chamber, a workpiece holder in a processing region of the plasma chamber having a puck to carry a workpiece, wherein the workpiece holder includes a heater plate having a plurality of thermally isolated blocks each thermally coupled to the puck, wherein each block includes a heater to heat a respective block of the heater plate, and wherein the workpiece holder includes a cooling plate fastened to and thermally coupled to the heater plate, the cooling plate defining a cooling channel configured to distribute a heat transfer fluid to transfer heat from the cooling plate, and a temperature controller to independently control each heater.