Amid its testing times, resulting from sluggish sales of computers and declining prices, memory chip maker Micron Technology received yet another big blow on Friday, when its chairman and CEO Steve Appleton died in a plane crash at an airport in Boise, Idaho.

The sudden and tragic death of 51-year-old Appleton is a major loss for the Idaho-based Micron Technology; more so because it comes at a time when the company, as well as the semiconductor industry as a whole, is undergoing a phase of rapid change.