Patent ID: 8642447

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device comprising: preparing a semiconductor wafer including a silicon substrate and a laminate having a compound semiconductor layer with a higher hardness than that of the silicon substrate; etching and removing a part of the laminate in a thickness direction until the silicon substrate is exposed to form trench regions in a grid, each trench region including a plurality of stripe grooves extending in parallel to each other; filling an inside of the grooves with a material having a lower hardness than the compound semiconductor layer to form a buried region, wherein the inside of each of the grooves is filled with the material having the lower hardness than that of the compound semiconductor layer to form a cavity, which is surrounded by the material having the lower hardness than that of the compound semiconductor layer, within each of the buried regions; forming semiconductor devices in element arrangement regions of the laminate each surrounded by the trench regions; and dividing the semiconductor wafer into a plurality of chips for each semiconductor device by dicing using a blade at a dicing line which is defined within the trench region and includes at least one of the buried regions.