A novel energy‐efficient 8 bit 2.78 kS/s capacitance‐to‐digital converter (CDC) interface for capacitive pressure sensors is presented. A new direct‐capacitance‐comparison technique (DCCT) is proposed and employed together with a successive approximation register (SAR) algorithm to resolve the sensor capacitance by, directly, comparing it with an on‐chip binary‐weighted capacitive digital‐to‐analogue converter (DAC) array. An offset DAC array compensates for the sensor rest and parasitic capacitances, accordingly, the interface gives a dynamically zoomed digital‐output code that corresponds only to the sensor capacitance change. The full‐scale input capacitance of the CDC is easily adjustable to interface to a wide range of sensors. The proposed 8 bit SAR‐based CDC is designed and simulated using 0.18 μm standard CMOS technology. The CDC exhibits a capacitance sensing range from 4 to 6 pF, provides a resolution and linearity of 7.26 and 8.2 bit, respectively. It achieves a figure‐of‐merit of 1.8 pJ/step at 1.4 V supply and 36 μs conversion time. Compared with the state‐of‐the‐art implementations with similar performance.