Enhanced clock and data recovery acquisition in the presence of large frequency offsets

A method for facilitating acquisition of a received reference clock signal in a CDR system includes steps of: initializing an integral register in a digital loop filter of the CDR system by setting a current value of the integral register to a first value; determining a number of mislock events occurring in a CDR loop of the CDR system, a mislock event being indicative of an unlocked state of the CDR loop; adjusting the current value of the integral register, when the number of mislock events is non-zero, by a second value to generate a new current value, the second value being a function of a negation of the current value of the integral register; and repeating the steps of determining the number of mislock events and adjusting the current value of the integral register until the number of mislock events is zero.