difference between firmware and softcam

Hello everybody,
can someone please explain to me if there's a difference between a softcam and firmware and if so what are the advantages of a softcam.

in general you put first a Firmware on a receiver, module ... and then you update (daily) keys by the softcam. So one could say that the FW is the brain and the softcam is the (daily) nutrition! ;)

Thanks a lot. Another question:
Is it possible for (example) Premiere to block keys or even to destroy a cam. I have read that Premiere is planning something like that when they are going to use a new scrambling method.