Deterministic analysis is becoming increasingly popular to study the theoretical mechanisms of ΣΔ modulation, as opposed to the classical noise‐shaping approach. This paper gives an overview of its application to the specific problem of signal reconstruction. Once an input signal has been processed through a ΣΔ modulator of given specifications, the fundamental question is to know what deterministic information can be retrieved about this signal from the ΣΔ output. The paper summarizes all results obtained in this research under a unified presentation framework. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.