If you need both performance and a small core (and not a superscalar one, because there are small superscalar cores). I will definitely not recommend you to use

If you need both performance and a small core (and not a superscalar one, because there are small superscalar cores). I will definitely not recommend you to use a RISC-V, RISC-V is not designed for that at all. You should rather turn towards some VLIW architecture (and RISC-V is not compatible with VLIW architecture) You will also gain in predictability.