Subthreshold conduction in submicron MODFETs has been measured and can be well described by a model which includes the shifts of both the ideality factor and the threshold voltage with the drain voltage. A method for extracting the model parameters from measured data is described. Experimental results turn out that it is essential to introduce the shift of the ideality factor with the drain voltage to properly describe the subthreshold characteristics observed in submicron MODFETs. The model with all extracted parameters, incorporating gate junction leakage, is in good agreement with the experimental data for 0.25/0.3 mum AlGaAs/GaAs MODFETs.