Updated AMD Zen CPU Microcode Lands In Linux-Firmware Tree
But as is often the case with new additions to linux-firmware.git, the changes to said microcode/firmware binaries aren't usually described in any level of detail. Though with this Zen CPU microcode update it ultimately shouldn't mean too much assuming you are punctual with your motherboard firmware updates that generally ship with the new AMD CPU microcode revisions, in which case the older (in-tree) firmware isn't loaded.
This is though the first AMD Family 17h microcode update to the linux-firmware.git tree since November of last year, so for those relying upon this Linux bundled CPU microcode, it's much newer. The AMD Family 17h microcode version is marked as "2019-10-21" so it is possible that there are some newer bits compared to what is currently bundled with the latest motherboard firmware updates.
I'm reaching out to AMD to try to find out more on any prominent changes to this microcode update / their motivation for now getting the Zen microcode updated for the linux-firmware tree or if it's simply a matter of now having gotten around to it. In fact, it's only the third time the AMD Zen CPU microcode has been updated within linux-firmware.git.
The commit with the updated binary for those interested in fetching it directly. Due to now having the Zen 2 bits and other changes over the past year, the binary size does inflate from 6476 to 9700 bytes.
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