Chipmakers' nightmare: Will shortages give way to a supply glut?

Expansion plans raise fears of another boom-to-bust cycle within the industry

An employee of GlobalFoundries holds a 300-millimeter wafer at the company's chip factory in Dresden, Germany on July 1. © AP

AKITO TANAKA, CHENG TING-FANG and LAULY LI, Nikkei staff writers

December 15, 2021 11:32 JST

This is the third in a Nikkei Asia series on supply chain nightmares. Read also Apple's nightmare before Christmas, a look at how the crisis finally reached the maker of the iPhone, and Automakers hit limits of 'just-in-time' supply chain management, on the car industry's nightmare year.

SINGAPORE/TAIPEI -- A dozen cranes stack giant concrete structures and heavy machines roar as they dig the ground at a massive construction site in the northern part of Singapore, near the Johor Strait, where the island nation shares its border with Malaysia.