A digital phase locked loop operates with a time-to-digital converter and an a-priori-probability-phase-estimation component or estimator component that estimates the un-quantized phase associated with a quantization output of the time-to-digital converter. The time-to-digital converter generates a quantized value as the quantization output from a local oscillator signal of a local oscillator and a reference signal of a reference clock. The estimation component estimates a phase value from the quantized values as a function of a-priori data related to the time-to-digital converter and boundaries of the quantized value.