Understanding of heat generation in semiconductor devices is important in the thermal management of integrated circuits and in the analysis of the device physics. Scanning thermal microscope was used to measure the temperature and the electric potential distribution on the cross-section of an operating metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). The temperature distributions were measured both in DC and AC modes in order to take account of the leakage current. The measurement results showed that as the drain bias was increased the hot spot moved to the drain. The density of the iso-potential lines near the drain increased with the increase in the drain bias.