Patent ID: 7041523

Claim:
A method of fabricating a nitride semiconductor device, comprising: forming a nitride semiconductor wafer by depositing on a substrate that exhibits cleavage a nitride semiconductor layer comprising a compound containing a group III element and nitrogen and having a cleavage plane crystallographically similar to a cleavage plane of the substrate and comprising a plurality of stripe-shaped optical waveguides formed at an equal separation in the nitride semiconductor layer; adjusting a thickness of the nitride semiconductor wafer so that the thickness falls within a range from 80 to 160 μm; forming a plurality of cleavage guide grooves in a shape of discontinuous broken lines in a top surface of the nitride semiconductor wafer by scribing from above the nitride semiconductor layer so that the cleavage guide grooves reach the substrate and no cleavage guide groove extends over the stripe-shaped optical wave guides; and cleaving the nitride semiconductor wafer along the cleavage guide grooves.