He broke his pattern last year by changing the orders in october. At a time intel was already aware of Meltdown and with a puplication date for the vulnerability set in January. Wikipedia states that the issue had been shared with manufacturers in July, a month after he normally issues his orders mentioned by the article.

Edit: The date on the last part is wrong, which doesn't change the fact that he changed his orders in the time between internal and public disclosure of Meltdown. I misread the article, in 2017 he issued his orders in February not June (2015).