"have hundreds of passive components sprinkled around the board" Resistors, inductors and capacitors are used to match the characteristic interface impedance (

"have hundreds of passive components sprinkled around the board" Resistors, inductors and capacitors are used to match the characteristic interface impedance (RLC) for many types of interfaces - there's often a integrated matching component near your Ethernet port. Capacitors are also used to "quiet" the power supply lines as they enter the integrated circuits. These passive components are rarely used when interconnecting the different "chips" in a system as you design your system to use compatible parts. And with additional integration in the SoC, I'm guessing you'll need additional capacitors around the chip. In short (too late?), I'm skeptical as to whether it will reduce the number of passive components at all. It will definitely make laying out a circuit board easier (except with BGA, you'll need multi-layer anyway).