This paper presents the deterministic generation and full characterization of multi-particle entangled W-states using trapped ions. The W-state is a special type of entangled state that is maximally persistent and robust against particle loss and noise. The authors demonstrate the creation of four-, five-, six-, seven- and eight-particle W-states with trapped ions, and perform full state tomography to obtain maximum information on these states. They also prove that these states carry genuine multi-particle entanglement. The W-state is defined as a superposition of N states where exactly one particle is in the |S⟩ state while all others are in the |D⟩ state. These states are important for quantum information processing and multi-party quantum communication. The authors use an ion-trap quantum processor to generate these states, trapping up to eight Ca+ ions in a linear Paul trap. Each ion is addressed with laser pulses to manipulate their quantum states. The authors use partial swap operations to generate the W-states by sharing one motional quantum between the ions. They perform initialization procedures to prepare the ions in the |0, DD...D⟩ state before generating the W-state. They then perform quantum state reconstruction to obtain full information on the N-ion entangled state by expanding the density matrix in a basis of observables and measuring the corresponding expectation values. They also investigate the entanglement properties of the states by analyzing (i) the presence of genuine multipartite entanglement, (ii) the distillability of multipartite entanglement and (iii) entanglement in reduced states of two qubits. They use entanglement witnesses to detect genuine multipartite entanglement and find that their experiment confirms the presence of genuine four, five, six, seven and eight qubit entanglement. They also investigate the scalability of their approach and find that four major sources of deviations from the ideal W-states are addressing errors, imperfect optical pumping, non-resonant excitations and frequency stability of the qubit-manipulation-laser. They show that the overall favorable scaling behavior of √N log N opens a way to study large scale entanglement experimentally. The authors also provide methods for constructing entanglement witnesses and discuss the experimental imperfections and scalability of their approach.This paper presents the deterministic generation and full characterization of multi-particle entangled W-states using trapped ions. The W-state is a special type of entangled state that is maximally persistent and robust against particle loss and noise. The authors demonstrate the creation of four-, five-, six-, seven- and eight-particle W-states with trapped ions, and perform full state tomography to obtain maximum information on these states. They also prove that these states carry genuine multi-particle entanglement. The W-state is defined as a superposition of N states where exactly one particle is in the |S⟩ state while all others are in the |D⟩ state. These states are important for quantum information processing and multi-party quantum communication. The authors use an ion-trap quantum processor to generate these states, trapping up to eight Ca+ ions in a linear Paul trap. Each ion is addressed with laser pulses to manipulate their quantum states. The authors use partial swap operations to generate the W-states by sharing one motional quantum between the ions. They perform initialization procedures to prepare the ions in the |0, DD...D⟩ state before generating the W-state. They then perform quantum state reconstruction to obtain full information on the N-ion entangled state by expanding the density matrix in a basis of observables and measuring the corresponding expectation values. They also investigate the entanglement properties of the states by analyzing (i) the presence of genuine multipartite entanglement, (ii) the distillability of multipartite entanglement and (iii) entanglement in reduced states of two qubits. They use entanglement witnesses to detect genuine multipartite entanglement and find that their experiment confirms the presence of genuine four, five, six, seven and eight qubit entanglement. They also investigate the scalability of their approach and find that four major sources of deviations from the ideal W-states are addressing errors, imperfect optical pumping, non-resonant excitations and frequency stability of the qubit-manipulation-laser. They show that the overall favorable scaling behavior of √N log N opens a way to study large scale entanglement experimentally. The authors also provide methods for constructing entanglement witnesses and discuss the experimental imperfections and scalability of their approach.