Phase-locked Loop - History

History

Automatic synchronization of electronic oscillators was described in 1923. Earliest research towards what became known as the phase-locked loop goes back to 1932, when British researchers developed an alternative to Edwin Armstrong's superheterodyne receiver, the Homodyne or direct-conversion receiver. In the homodyne or synchrodyne system, a local oscillator was tuned to the desired input frequency and multiplied with the input signal. The resulting output signal included the original modulation information. The intent was to develop an alternative receiver circuit that required fewer tuned circuits than the superheterodyne receiver. Since the local oscillator would rapidly drift in frequency, an automatic correction signal was applied to the oscillator, maintaining it in the same phase and frequency as the desired signal. The technique was described in 1932, in a paper by Henri de Bellescize, in the French journal L'Onde Électrique.

In analog television receivers since at least the late 1930s, phase-locked-loop horizontal and vertical sweep circuits are locked to synchronization pulses in the broadcast signal.

When Signetics introduced a line of monolithic integrated circuits such as the NE565 that were complete phase-locked loop systems on a chip in 1969, applications for the technique multiplied. A few years later RCA introduced the "CD4046" CMOS Micropower Phase-Locked Loop, which became a popular integrated circuit.