In this paper, a CMOS interface circuit as part of an optical sensor-based microsystem for pH monitoring applications is presented. The proposed circuit is capable of processing a voltage signal produced by the light transducer and generating 8-bit digital outputs representing the color information (i.e. wavelength). A resolution of 8 different colors has been achieved as a proof of concept and can easily be extended to a higher number of colors without a major modification in the architecture. The proposed interface circuit is a mixed-signal solution that consists of analog as well as digital building blocks along with a light transducer. It can be used as a portable and non-intrusive optical sensor for biomedical and environmental sensing applications. © 2012 IEEE.