This paper presents design considerations for cascade Sigma-Delta Modulators (ΣΔMs) included in multi-standard wireless transceivers. Four different standards are covered: GSM, Bluetooth, UMTS and WLAN. A top-down design methodology is proposed to find out the optimum modulator architecture in terms of circuit complexity and reconfiguration parameters. The selected 2-1^(L-2) expandible YAM is high-level sized and several reconfiguration strategies are adopted at both architecture- and circuit-level in order to adapt the modulator performance to the different standards requirements with adaptive power consumption. Time-domain simulations are shown to validate the presented approach.This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education (with support from the European Regional Development Fund) under contract ITEC2004-01752/MIC.Peer reviewed