You are confusing the concept of uops (or micro-instructions) with microcode. Microcode is when the CPU runs microcode from a microcode ROM to implement an ins

You are confusing the concept of uops (or micro-instructions) with microcode. Microcode is when the CPU runs microcode from a microcode ROM to implement an instruction. In CISC days this was often all instructions (these were termed microcoded CPUs). The same architecture might have cheap microcoded and high end "hardwired" implementations. There's a conceptual similarity between uops and microcode, to quote the WP microcode article: "Modern CISC/RISC implementations, e.g. x86 designs, decode instructions into dynamically buffered micro-operations with instruction encodings similar to traditional fixed microcode. Ordinary static microcode is used as hardware assistance for complex multistep operations such as auto-repeating instructions and for transcendental functions in the floating point unit; it is also used for special purpose instructions (such as CPUID) and internal control and configuration purposes."