A Ka-band 0.5 W monolithic amplifier using a novel tandem FET has been developed. The tandem FET consists of two FET cells connected in series through a short transmission line. The features of the tandem FET are high gain, flat gain response and miniaturized size. The tandem FET is very useful for obtaining high gain, high power amplifiers operating in millimeter-wave region where combining and matching circuits' losses are significantly large. By combining four tandem FETs, a linear gain of 4.5 dB, a 1 dB compressed power of 26.3 dBm and a saturated output power of 27.3 dBm (0.54 W) have been achieved at 37 GHz. The size of the amplifier is 1.73.20.03t mm.