Patent ID: 6859231

Claim:
A drive control method for a photosensor array including a plurality of rows, each having a plurality of photosensors arranged to form a matrix, the method comprising a driving sequence which includes: applying a reset pulse to a predetermined row of the photosensor array to initialize the plurality of photosensors in the row; accumulating charges generated by light irradiation during a charge accumulation period; applying a predetermined pre-charge pulse to the plurality of photosensors during a pre-charge operation; and applying a read pulse to the plurality of photosensors of the row after completion of the initialization, after the charge accumulating period, and after the pre-charge operation, to output a voltage generated by the charges accumulated during the charge accumulating period as an output voltage; wherein timings of applying the reset pulse, the pre-charge pulse and the read pulse to each row are set not to overlap in time with each other, wherein the charge accumulating periods for the rows are set to have a period equal to one of: (i) a sum of a read pulse interval for each row and a pulse width of the pre-charge pulse, and (ii) a sum of an integer multiple of a read pulse interval and the pulse width of the pre-charge pulse, and wherein the charge accumulating periods have an overlapping period between at least two different rows.