Many of us encountered the term cache, especially when designers work in hand with engineers and engineers say to clear the cache. What is cache?
Cache is an optimization technique used in computers designed to expedite the process of opening files, performing repeat expensive calculations, etc.
At the moment, the best analogy I can come up with is muscle memory. The human brain is capable of keeping around 4-7 ideas on its mind—short-term memory. Likewise, the computer's can temporary by the amount of RAM(Random Access Memory) the computer has—which it is constrained to.
In the supply chain its a temporary/emergency reserve of assets—its extremely volatile, it acts as a buffer for the worse case scenarios—stress on resources. In the case of computers, computing calculations may be expensive and cache acts as a buffer to reduce expensive computation, which may be capital constrained—cloud computing—or it's a user interface and rendering without any lags is crucial for an operating system to appear stable and usable in today's day and age given the standards modern computing devices have established—smartphones, smartwatches, etc.
What's the purpose of calculating everything when only a small subset may need to be recalculated/readjusted—it's extremely useful when simulating because now you can simulate more complex environments with fewer resources. It's the same in production, you can produce with fewer resources on hand and replenish the cache/storage inventory as supplies become depleted.
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Great post. Cache memory is important across architectures.