Sim founded Creative Technology, the company behind the Sound Blaster brand of sound cards, in 1981. For those of us who still remember Sound Blasters were some of the first sound cards available to consumers, and you needed one if you wanted to listen to music and play games.

Sim established his business in the US and started selling Sound Blasters a few years later, after which Creative became the first Singaporean company to be listed on the Nasdaq exchange. The integration of sound boards into the motherboard ended Sound Blaster's popularity, but Bloomberg says the cards provided audio for more than 400 million PCs.

Creative also launched a range of MP3 players. Sim was also brave enough to take on the fruity cargo cult Apple when it sued for violating its patent for portable media system menus. The companies filed more lawsuits against each other after that before Apple settled with Creative and paid the company $100 million for the technology outlined in its patent.

Lee Kheng Nam will take over as interim chairman after his death. He previously served as the main independent non-executive director.