@dushman >Does the same thing as updated microcode
It doesn't, but if I was intel, I would shy away from putting malicious circuits in ROM, as some decapping enjoyer would find out in 10-20 years and instead put the malware in the microcode updates, as those are in an undocumented instruction set that's heavily obfuscated and encrypted too and chances are no-one will ever find out or even if they do, good luck to them putting the evidence in a form admissible in court.

>If you burned windows into ROM would that make it cool and freedom respecting
That would make it no longer software but it wouldn't be freedom respecting as that would be a malicious circuit, due to all the malware in windows.