>Think of microcode like a firmware for your computer’s CPU. Microcode translates the instructions the CPU receives into the physical, circuit-level operations

>Think of microcode like a firmware for your computer’s CPU. Microcode translates the instructions the CPU receives into the physical, circuit-level operations that happen inside the CPU. In other words, an updated microcode can send different instructions to the circuits inside the CPU. This can prevent certain Spectre attacks by changing the way the CPU functions. Microcode updates can also fix bugs and other errors, without requiring complete replacement of CPU hardware.