[bratch]

The package contains microcode for old CPUs but it isn't necessarily still updated or recent.

Here for example is what's available for my router's CPU, from the latest package:

  # grep model\ name /proc/cpuinfo
  model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E4500  @ 2.20GHz

  # iucode_tool -S -l /lib/firmware/intel-ucode/* | tail -n1
  iucode_tool: system has processor(s) with signature 0x000006fd
    030/003: sig 0x000006fd, pf_mask 0x01, 2010-10-02, rev 0x00a4, size 4096

Last updated almost eight years ago, so doesn't contain any Spectre/Meltdown fixes.

[gargravarr]

According to another link on here, there are plans to patch all the way back to 45nm Core 2 Duo chips in the works:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12533/intel-spectre-meltdown