Yes I think cache was an important motivator for some early designs (eg the IBM 801 - shameless plug below! [1]) as the central idea was that fast instruction cache would replace fast microcode store thus removing any code size penalty.
In fact I don't think code size was that much bigger for these designs so cache was probably less important than they initially thought.
The Arm team recognised that memory bandwidth was key for a cache less design and so designed to maximise this and make the most of it - hence the outperformance.
In fact I don't think code size was that much bigger for these designs so cache was probably less important than they initially thought.
The Arm team recognised that memory bandwidth was key for a cache less design and so designed to maximise this and make the most of it - hence the outperformance.
[1] https://thechipletter.substack.com/p/the-first-risc-john-coc...