The 32 nm channel length vertical negative metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors ͑nMOSFETs͒ with asymmetric graded lightly doped drain ͑AGLDD͒ structure were experimentally demonstrated. Compared with the conventional LDD structure, due to the reduced peak electric field near the drain junction and the increased potential barrier of the channel in the off state, the vertical AGLDD structure can reduce the off-state leakage current and suppress the short-channel effects dramatically. The fabricated 32 nm AGLDD device with 4.0 nm gate oxide still shows excellent short-channel performance. The off-state leakage current ͑I off ͒ and the ratio of on current ͑I on ͒ to off-current I off are 3.7 ϫ 10 −11 A/m and 2.1 ϫ 10 6 , respectively.As complementary metal-oxide semiconductor ͑CMOS͒ devices scale down to the sub-100-nm regime for the increasing needs of a higher packing density and faster device speed, conventional planar devices have faced serious challenges such as increased off-state leakage current, short-channel effects, reliability degradation, etc. 1 Thus, the engineering of the device structure including drain engineering has become more important and has shown potential for future CMOS scaling. The conventional symmetric uniform lightly doped drain ͑LDD͒ structure has been widely used to relieve the electric field in the channel and enhance device reliability. However, it might degrade the device driving capability due to the large series resistance existing in the LDD regions. The improved drain engineering of the graded LDD ͑GLDD͒ structure has received more attention because the GLDD structure not only has a major impact on the device reliability and the extrinsic series resistance, 2-6 but can also affect the short-channel effects. 5,6 Compared with the conventional LDD structure, the GLDD structure can achieve a better hot carrier reliability due to the remarkably reduced peak electric field near the drain junction. 2-4 Meanwhile, the GLDD structure can provide a higher driving current for the lower source/drain ͑S/D͒ resistances. Moreover, the GLDD structure can reduce the short-channel effects ͑SCEs͒ by increasing the potential barrier of the channel in the off state. 6 However, the planar GLDD structure is not easily realized, controlled, and measured, and a high source series resistance still exists for the symmetric fabrication. [2][3][4][5][6] In this article, we propose the asymmetric GLDD ͑AGLDD͒ structure in a vertical device with a 32 nm channel length which can combine the advantages of the asymmetric GLDD structure ͑GLDD region only on the drain side͒ and the vertical channel device. The schematic cross-sectional view is shown in Fig. 1. The vertical AGLDD structure can provide several advantages. First, compared with the planar GLDD structure, the vertical AGLDD structure is much easier to fabricate, and the AGLDD profiles are more convenient to control and measure. Second, due to the asymmetric structure, which can also be easily realized in the vertical structure, the source...