Spectre and Meltdown are CPU design flaws having to do with the lack of security in out-of-order instructions.  There is no "chip within a chip".  Any article that would write that... has no fundamental understanding of the problem.  Spectre and Meltdown can affect any CPU with out-of-order instruction processing, unless the OS takes specific measures to prevent it.  That includes Intel, AMD, ARM, and many other smaller players.  So you are saying the NSA infiltrated all of these companies and specifically told the computer scientists who developed out-of-order instruction processing back in the 1990s... for the express reason to "drop in on you?"  That's a long, long game... and that's not what happened.

It was simply a design flaw that was found to be exploitable.