Will the 74 series be phased out? There are programmable devices around that could reduce the dozens of little trays and drawers of 74's and 4000's many of us have hidden somewhere to just a few, based on pincount.
Only when the people that design with them are phased out. For most jobs the 8-bit mcu's running at low clock speeds are very capable. While newer, faster, wider micro's might be the same price, they aren't the same cost. Pincounts keep going up as more and more ports and peripherals are added which makes PCB design more difficult, voltages keep dropping which forces the use of different external peripherals, and the cost of development tools and people skilled in their use goes up.
People trust 8-bit micro families that have been around for years. The 8051's over 30 years old but new "compatible" devices are still being developed, and you'll find low pincount PICs all over the place because they can solve so many little design problems with such little effort and using such little PCB resourse.
Maybe when colleges and universities stop using 8bit devices in labs, and hobby magazines stop publishing 8bit projects, perhaps then the manufacturers will stop developing newer 8 bit chips.
