The performance and reliability of the GMR heads are adversely affected by self-heating due to the aggressive scaling of its dimensions to increase areal density. In this manuscript, the self-heating of the GMR head during the normal operation is investigated. An analytical model is developed to estimate the temperature rise in the GMR sensor due to self-heating for magnetic recording areal densities from 2.8 to 80 Gbits/in~2, which agrees well with the FEM simulations. This model is subsequently used to investigate the influence of the GMR head constituent materials' thermal properties on the device temperature rise. A 3-D finite element analysis was also performed to predict the level of self-heating in lead-overlaid (LOL) design, which agrees well with the experimental data obtained using steady-state and transient measurements.
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