Page "Device driver" Paragraph 2

A device driver simplifies programming by acting as translator between a hardware device and the applications or operating systems that use it.

Programmers can write the higher-level application code independently of whatever specific hardware the end-user is using.

Physical layers communicate with specific device instances.

For example, a serial port needs to handle standard communication protocols such as XON / XOFF that are common for all serial port hardware.

This would be managed by a serial port logical layer.

However, the physical layer needs to communicate with a particular serial port chip.

16550 UART hardware differs from PL-011.

The physical layer addresses these chip-specific variations.

Conventionally, OS requests go to the logical layer first.

In turn, the logical layer calls upon the physical layer to implement OS requests in terms understandable by the hardware.

Conversely, when a hardware device needs to respond to the OS, it uses the physical layer to speak to the logical layer.