A method for wafer dicing and removing separated integrated circuit (IC) dies from a carrier substrate includes mounting a wafer on a substrate using an adhesive layer, laser scribing the adhesive layer to create defect regions in the adhesive layer, and performing a breaking step to separate the laser-scribed adhesive layer into separated adhesive portions corresponding to the IC dies. For a stealth-dicing (SD) technique, defect regions also are created in the wafer using a laser and the breaking step is an expansion step that simultaneously separates the dies and corresponding portions of adhesive. For a dice-before-grind (DBG) technique, the dies are separated by backside grinding before the breaking step. Efficient adhesive-layer separation is achieved with reduced backside chipping associated with conventional blade dicing.