US Patent 8344772 Time-to-digital converter and all digital phase-locked loop including the same

An all digital phase-locked loop (ADPLL) includes: a phase counter accumulating a frequency setting word value and the phase of a digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) clock and detecting a fine phase difference between a reference clock and a retimed clock; a phase detector detecting a digital phase error value compensating for a phase difference between the frequency setting word value and the DCO clock according to the fine phase difference to detect a digital phase error value; a digital loop filter filtering the digital phase error value and controlling PLL operational characteristics; a lock detector generating a lock indication signal according an output of the digital loop filter; a digitally controlled oscillator varying the frequency of the DCO clock according to the output from the digital loop filter; and a retimed clock generator generating the retimed clock by retiming the DCO clock at a low frequency.