A CMUT front-end for high performance portable ultrasound medical imaging is proposed. Designed for CMUTs operating in the 1–15 MHz range, it comprises a 100-V TX driver, a high voltage T/R switch and an ultra-low-power RX amplifier. The impact of the large parasitic capacitances of high-voltage devices, responsible for SNR degradation, is minimized by careful design and dedicated circuit techniques while the RX amplifier exploits capacitive feedback to achieve a better noise-power performance than commonly adopted trans-resistance topologies. Electrical characterization as well as pulse-echo measurements are shown. The transceiver proves state-of-the-art noise performance and very high dynamic range with power dissipation of the RX amplifier of 1 mW only.