A delta-sigma analog-to-digital converter (ADC) circuit improves performance by reducing the amount of noise and other error sampled by the reference switching circuit. The reference switching network is operated intermittently only when the charge on an input integrator exceeds a threshold, thereby preventing the input integrator from saturating, while avoiding needlessly injecting reference noise. The input to the ADC may be a current injected directly into a summing node of the integrator, or may be a voltage supplied through another switching network.