Boise, Idaho ? Billionaire J.R. Simplot, the spud king of America whose wealth also helped create one of the world’s biggest computer chip makers, died Sunday at his Boise home. He was 99.

Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg said Simplot apparently died of natural causes.

The quintessential Idaho farmer increasingly dominated the state’s business and political landscape for 70 years, and the company that bears his name remains a powerful force today – in Idaho and beyond.

A Declo farmboy who never attended high school, Simplot built a personal fortune recently estimated at $3.6 billion. He and the company he founded all but reinvented the humble potato, creating the first successful frozen french fries and partnering with McDonald’s to sell them worldwide. The private company he began became one of the largest agribusiness conglomerates in the world.

His businesses, still family owned, manufacture agriculture, horticulture and turf fertilizers; animal feed and seeds; food products such as fruits, potatoes and other vegetables; and industrial chemicals and irrigation products.

In 1980, at age 71, Simplot took a gamble on the next generation of businessmen, giving Ward and Joe Parkinson $1 million for 40 percent of what would become computer chip maker Micron Technology Inc.

Over the years, he pumped in $20 million more to help Micron build its first manufacturing plant and to stay afloat. Micron went on to become a major producer of DRAM memory chips, which are used to store information in personal computers.