The nerve center of the entire system is the Tanto Base. Fitted with several high-speed communication interfaces (USB, Ethernet and RS232 are standard) and a high performance 32-bit microcontroller, Tanto Base can be used not only as one of the fastest JTAG- or BDM-Debuggers around, but also as the brain of a complete system. Additional programmable hardware is included for the high-speed serialization of JTAG or BDM commands.

When used together with the comfortable HiTOP user interface, Tanto Base is the right tool to examine embedded applications in high-level language mode in real-time. All parameters associated with the microcontroller, application and peripherals (e.g. functions, variables, data) are exposed, and allowing the developer to ensure the application does what it should.

Tanto Base is universal hardware that can be used with a great deal of microcontroller types, and corresponding HiTOP versions are provided for each of them.