Abstract: A semiconductor reading device comprises an insulated substrate and a plurality of integrated circuit reading chips disposed on the substrate. Each reading chip comprises a semiconductor substrate containing thereon a plurality of bipolar phototransistors which are responsive to incident light for producing video signals. The phototransistors are formed in the surface of the semiconductor substrate and are equidistantly spaced from one another in a longitudinal direction of the semiconductor substrate. A plurality of signal transmitting elements in the form of MOS transistor are connected to respective ones of the phototransistors and are switchable between a conducting state to transmit therethrough the video signal from its corresponding phototransistor and a non-conducting state. A multi-stage shift register sequentially switches the signal transmitting elements from the non-conducting state to the conducting state to sequentially read out the video signals from the phototransistors.