SOI technology is now emerging as a mature technology applied in the analog IC design, which necessities an accurate model to describe distortion effects. In this paper a compact transistor model is proposed for distortion analysis of fully depleted SOI MOSFET operating in strong inversion regime. In the model, both short channel effects and self-heating effect (unique to SOI due to the buried oxide) are considered. To obtain a concise and accurate model an approximation method is developed to determine the dominant physical effects in distortion analysis. The model agrees well with the experimental data. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.