BERLIN — Former Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess is in line to turn into supervisory board chairman at semiconductor group Infineon.

Diess, 64, was changed as VW Group CEO by Porsche boss Oliver Blume on Sept. 1. Throughout his four-year stint main the automaker, Diess clashed with senior managers and the automaker’s highly effective works council over his electrification technique and administration fashion.

Diess’s appointment as Infineon chairman is topic to a confirming vote on the chipmaker’s annual assembly on Feb. 16. He’ll succeed Wolfgang Eder, 70, who plans to resign on the assembly.

“Now could be the appropriate time to make adjustments to the supervisory board,” mentioned Eder, who has held the put up since 2019. “Given the extremely difficult setting during which Infineon is lively, I’m happy to welcome Dr. Diess as the perfect candidate to turn into my successor. He has glorious information of the corporate and of the business panorama.”

The transfer represents a return to the chipmaker for Diess, a fomer BMW govt, who was a supervisory board member from 2015 to 2020.

Infineon, primarily based in Neubiberg close to Munich, counts the automotive business as its greatest buyer.

Stellantis not too long ago introduced plans to purchase greater than $1 billion price of chips from Infineon because it electrifies its manufacturers in Europe together with Peugeot, Fiat, Opel, and Alfa Romeo.

The top of Infineon’s automotive unit, Peter Schiefer mentioned in January that he expects shortages of its core microchips to be over subsequent 12 months, with the state of affairs enhancing in summer season 2023.

To satisfy the rising demand, Infineon plans to develop its manufacturing capacities, together with funding in its 1.6 billion-euro ($1.8 billion) semiconductor plant in Villach, Austria, which was inaugurated final 12 months.