gmake 3.78.1 timestamp problem?

[Zartaj T. Majeed]

I'm using GNU make 3.78.1 on Solaris 8.
GNU Make version 3.78.1, by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath.
Built for sparc-sun-solaris2.6

While building a big tree of C source files that get added to various
archive libraries, I consistently see some .o's not added to an archive
as they should be, even though the archive library has the .o's as
dependencies and they are newer than the archive.
The particular archive and .o's vary from build to build but among the
hundreds that are built in one session, a handful of .o's are affected.

Running make -d shows an example; in this case libxyz.a has dep.o
as a prerequisite:
The source file dep.c is in a ClearCase view.

  Considering target file `/export/home/pub/SunOS/lib/libxyz.a'.
    Considering target file `dep.o'.
     File `dep.o' does not exist.
     Looking for an implicit rule for `dep.o'.
     Trying pattern rule with stem `dep'.
     Trying implicit prerequisite `dep.c'.
     Found prerequisite `dep.c' as VPATH `/export/home/pub/dep/dep.c'
     Found an implicit rule for `dep.o'.
      Pruning file `/export/home/pub/src/dep/dep.c'.
     Finished prerequisites of target file `dep.o'.
    Must remake target `dep.o'.
make[1]: Entering directory `/export/home/pub/src/dep'
gcc -pipe  ... -c -o dep.o /export/home/pub/src/dep.c
Putting child 0x00053300 (dep.o) PID 14716 on the chain.
Live child 0x00053300 (dep.o) PID 14716
Got a SIGCHLD; 1 unreaped children.
Reaping winning child 0x00053300 PID 14716
Removing child 0x00053300 PID 14716  from chain.
    Successfully remade target file `dep.o'.
   Finished prerequisites of target file
`/export/home/pub/SunOS/lib/libxyz.a'.
   Prerequisite `dep.o' is newer than target
`/export/home/pub/SunOS/lib/libxyz.a'.
  No need to remake target `/export/home/pub/SunOS/lib/libxyz.a'.

Is this a known bug? Has it been corrected in the latest make?

Thanks,
Zartaj