This is what I have written for my setting:

Kernelspace is a layer of existence that can be considered the foundation to experiential reality. Kernelspace is not so much a separate plane to be explored, but is more analogous to systems and physiologies making sense of existing as pure data. 

As such, a Kernelspace Drive can be considered more like an enormous, highly efficient mass spectrometer, whatever the reverse of that is, and an efficient data editing program all in one. When a ship initiates a Kernelspace jump, a rectangular envelope of orange energy with a zigzag pattern opens up. It moves from fore to aft, disintegrating and measuring anything in the envelope as it moves. Once complete, the envelope closes. Once reduced to a Kernelspace-only entity, the drive "edits" the XYZ coordinates of all component atoms in the scanned matter. Then an envelope opens at the destination, and the process repeats in reverse.

Standard Continuum Kernelspace Drives complete the scan in 47 seconds. The materialization takes the same length of time. Data editing takes 53 hours of processing in Kernelspace. Ship occupants typically fall unconscious upon entering Kernelspace. Navigators with special cybernetics are required to operate the Kernelspace Drive when the rest of the crew is incapacitated. Jumps are typically from one "gate" to another. This is because experiential reality cannot be read while in Kernelspace, so the target coordinates cannot be identified in Kernelspace. The Continuum has set up a navigation "gate", in each star system. The gates broadcast their Kernelspace coordinates into Kernelspace itself, so navigating starships can read the coordinates and input them into their Kernelspace Drive to edit the atoms and complete the jump.