FRANKFURT, GERMANY: The semiconductor sector has passed the worst of the slump but it will take years to return to sales levels reached before the financial crisis, Infineon's chief financial officer was quoted as saying.

“In the last four to six weeks the situation has changed,” Marco Schroeter told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Thursday.

Demand, especially from industrial and automotive customers, has increased and "we now have visibility into the next two quarters, and it looks better than six week ago".

He said quarterly growth rates could flatten in the second quarter but added the company would not see a decline as sharp as it saw in its fiscal first quarter that ended on December 31, according to the paper.

Asked about Infineon's results for the fourth quarter that ended on Wednesday, he said: “We won't disappoint market expectations.”