This paper presents a high precision CMOS readout circuit for a capacitive MEMS gyroscope. A continuous time topology is employed as well as the chopper noise cancelling technique. A detailed analysis of the noise and mismatch of the capacitive readout circuit is given. The analysis and measurement results have shown that thermal noise dominates in the proposed circuit, and several approaches should be used for both noise and mismatch optimization. The circuit chip operates under a single 5 V supply, and has a measured capacitance resolution of 0.2 aF/√Hz. With such a readout circuit, the gyroscope can accurately measure the angular rate with a sensitivity of 15.3 mV/°/s.