I'm not as up to date on the latest cutting edge technology for multi ghz processors as you guy's . But what im seeing is most of the 10-20 year old Atmel , Microchip and motorola etc.. 8 and 16 bit cpu's are completely out of stock with long lead times. Many small companies still use because they have the mid level assembly equipment to be able to handle them. But now have obsolete pcb's with no parts .

Probably there is more money in making the latest fastest parts , but i never would have thought parts we used 2 years ago would competely disappear and may never come back. Obsolescence happened almost over night !

We knew back in 2003 that Sars probably would return at some time, but I don't think anyone would have predicted what it could do to the world economy or how easily things could be throw out of balance in the manufacturing sector. The truth is .. every warning has been ignored by governments. 40 years ago in popular science magazines they talked about the need for alternate energy , but then came the Internet and Cell phones which were much more fun and all the money went into that .. and alternate energy was put on the back burner .
Same as sars , they talked in 2006 that they would need millions of masks and medical supplies, but governments ( around the world ) never stocked up.

Like the crash in 2009 ... all the econonmist and think tanks can't seem to really predict whats really going to happen