hardware abstraction layer (HAL)
The Hardware Abstraction Layer(HAL) is a logical intermediate layer in an operating system. This intermediate layer simplifies the porting of the operating system and shields the hardware-specific properties of the target platform from the rest of the operating system. For example, the HAL functionality of Windows NT and NT-Advanced servers behaves like an interface between the operating system kernel and specific hardware.
The hardware abstraction layer abstracts platform characteristics through standard application programming interfaces( API), making all platforms and architectures look the same to the rest of the operating system. This allows the same operating system to run on different platforms with different processors. When the hardware platform is changed, the adjustments are only made within the HAL intermediate layer.
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The function of the hardware abstraction layer is not limited to operating systems, but is used wherever certain layers of a system architecture have to be separated from each other. For example, in Software Defined Radio( SDR) where the HAL layer separates the middleware platform with the various access services and multimedia services from the hardware.