The Register investigated the matter and concludes its 99% a hoax. In particular, the site notes that none of the chip designers nor operating system developers they talked too have heard about these attacks:
This paragraph is news to chip designers and OS devs we've spoken to, which is telling. https://t.co/mQo5mtEPxt pic.twitter.com/0qCu5TnsmY
— The Register (@TheRegister) January 18, 2018