Manufacturing method of device chip

A manufacturing method of a device chip by which a wafer in which a device is formed in each of a plurality of regions marked out by a plurality of streets formed in a lattice manner in a front surface of a substrate and front surfaces of the streets are coated with a film is divided into individual device chips along the streets, the manufacturing method comprising:

• a film removal step of removing the film in regions corresponding to the streets;
• a modified layer forming step of, after executing the film removal step, forming a modified layer inside the wafer through positioning a focal point of a laser beam with a wavelength having transmissibility with respect to the wafer inside the wafer and executing irradiation with the laser beam from a back surface side of the wafer along regions corresponding to the regions from which the film has been removed;
• and
• a dividing step of giving an external force to the wafer and dividing the wafer into the individual device chips after executing the modified layer forming step, wherein
• in the film removal step, a distance from an end part of the street in a width direction to the region from which the film is to be removed is set equal to or shorter than a predetermined upper limit value to cause formation of a step between a region in which the substrate is exposed and a region coated with the film at an outer edge part of the device chip when the wafer is divided into the individual device chips in the dividing step.