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In this work, the degradation of a GaN power amplifier (PA) integrated in a thin film multi-chip module (MCM-D) interconnect technology is investigated by means of DC and RF measurements. Failure analysis has demonstrated that improper thermal contact may cause the PA module performance degradation. Moreover, we have experimentally studied the thermal effects on the RF performance of MCM-D and low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) PAs. It shows that the device exhibits a higher output power density on a thinned MCM-D substrate than on an LTCC substrate with thermal vias, and also that the output power density can be further improved by reducing the heat spread distance between active devices and heat sink.