Apparatus and method for driving surface discharge plasma display panel

There is provided an apparatus and a method for driving a surface discharge PDP in which a driving voltage supply frame for displaying an image is constructed of N sub-fields, and each sub-field is composed of an erasing period, an addressing period and a sustaining period, the sustaining period alternately providing a predetermined sustaining pulse to first and second electrodes constructing the display panel. The method comprises: a sustaining pulse counting step for counting the number of sustaining pulses by sub-fields, which are generated in the first electrode to which the final sustaining pulse of the sub-fields is supplied during the sustaining period of each sub-fields; and an erasing pulse supplying step for providing an erasing pulse having a slope to the second electrode on the basis of erasing pulse slope information corresponding to information about the number of the sustaining pulses counted in the sustaining pulse counting step, the slope of the erasing pulse corresponding to the erasing pulse slope information. Therefore, the slope of the erasing pulse is controlled to correspond to the quantity of remaining charges caused by supply of the previous sustaining pulse, to thereby improve picture quality of a black picture according to the high voltage and reduce the number of times of providing the high voltage writing pulse, realizing a plasma display panel with lower consumption power.