This paper presents a novel design approach for fully reconfigurable low-voltage delta-sigma analog-digital converters for next-generation wireless applications. This approach guides us to find the power-optimal solution corresponding to the specifications of various wireless standards by exploring single-loop feedback and feedforward topologies with different filter order, number of quantizer bits, and oversampling ratios. Unlike previous multimode designs, this approach provides a better power efficiency. Based on this approach, a system-level design of a digitally programmable delta-sigma modulator for 4G radios is presented.Index Terms-4G radios, analog-digital converter (ADC), continuous time (CT), delta-sigma modulator (DSM), design approach, power optimization, reconfigurable.