Using the concept of traveling-wave gain stages, novel GaAs pseudomorphic high electron-mobility transistor monolithic-microwave integrated-circuit (MMIC) distributed amplifiers (DAs) are demonstrated to achieve high gain and over several octaves of bandwidth performance simultaneously for microwave and millimeter-wave frequency applications. The cascaded single-stage distributed amplifier (CSSDA) is used as traveling-wave gain stages to improve the gain performance of the conventional distributed amplifier (CDA). By adopting the low-pass filter topology between the CDA and CSSDA and tuning the gain shape of CDA and CSSDA separately, a broad-band and high-gain DA, called CDA-CSSDA-2, was accomplished. The detailed design equations are derived for the broad-band matching design of this CDA-CSSDA-2. Two other MMICs, namely, a two-stage CSSDA called 2-CSSDA, and another twostage design called CDA-CSSDA-1, are also included in this paper. This CDA-CSSDA-2 achieves 22 1.5-dB small-signal gain from 0.1 to 40 GHz with a chip size of 1.5 2 mm 2. It also produces a gain-bandwidth product of 503 GHz, which is the highest among all reported GaAs-based DAs. The flat group delay also demonstrates the feasibility of this design for future digital optical communications and broad-band pulse applications. Index Terms-Broad-band, cascaded single-stage distributed amplifier (CSSDA), conventional distributed amplifier (CDA), distributed amplifier (DA), monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC), traveling-wave gain stage.