NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - When semiconductor manufacturer Microchip Technology issued an earnings warning on Monday, it said the war in Iraq was partly to blame for the poor results.

Yawn. Who hasn't?

But Microchip's warning was newsworthy because it also specifically cited the mysterious Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) disease as a reason for lowering its sales and earnings guidance. Microchip is the first technology company to mention SARS and it probably won't be the last.

SARS could be a legitimate problem for tech companies and not just another lame "The dog ate my earnings" excuse.

Unlike the war, which seems to be having more of a psychological effect on tech (i.e. customers claim that the reason they aren't buying is "geopolitical uncertainty"), the SARS crisis could have a tangible impact on the supply chains of semiconductor companies since so many of them have manufacturing plants in China, where the disease appears to have originated, and other nations in Southeast Asia.

Microchip Technology is the first tech firm to blame SARS for an earnings shortfall.

While no tech companies have reported any major disruptions yet due to the disease, there have been some SARS scares in a Hong Kong sales office of Intel and a Motorola plant in Singapore. So fund managers and analysts that follow chip companies are paying close attention to SARS related news.

"Productivity is the issue. If you have people that are sick or afraid to leave their house, I don't know how you can get around that," said Jay Wong, co-manager of the Payden US Growth Leaders and Payden Small Cap Leaders funds. "Semiconductor manufacturing plants are in China and it's not as if there are many back up plants around the world."

Another reason why SARS could be a bigger threat than the war is that it truly is something that chip companies were not prepared for.

"SARS is a legitimate cause for concern because this came out of nowhere. The Iraq conflict has been the most publicized war in the history of mankind," said Walter Casey, co-manager of the One Group Technology fund, which owns Microchip.

But Casey added that it is a bit early for tech firms to be blaming SARS for poor results, since the disease really didn't become publicized until mid-March. "I think SARS is more a second quarter issue for semiconductor companies," Casey said.

To that end, Microchip's trotting out of SARS as a reason for missing its first quarter numbers was met with skepticism on Wall Street. Shares of Microchip (MCHP: Research, Estimates) plunged 9.1 percent Tuesday on the news. Part of the problem is that this is Microchip's second earnings warning in less than a month and the company blamed the war then as well.

In addition, Microchip said that cutbacks in business travel due to the disease were possibly contributing to delays in sales. That did not sit well with one analyst.

"People are less likely to travel to Hong Kong but does that mean business is slow because of that? No, it's because the economy hasn't picked up," said Eric Ross, an analyst with Investec. He does not own Microchip and his firm has no investment banking relationship with the company.

What's more, ST Microelectronics (STM: Research, Estimates), a Microchip competitor, issued an earnings warning as well last week and it did not mention SARS as a reason for its bad news.

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But Ross isn't dismissing SARS. He said if the disease spreads to Taiwan then there could be a huge ripple effect on chip and hardware companies since there is an even greater concentration of chip plants there than in China.

Making matters worse is the lingering confusion about just how much worse the situation can get. The government of China has been criticized for its handling of the outbreak. So nobody really seems to have an idea just yet as to how many people are suffering from the disease.

"This might be a bigger problem than it seems, given that China hasn't been upfront with the seriousness of the issue," said Wong.

So until the disease is under control, SARS will likely be another cloud hanging over chip companies.