A highly integrated and low-cost reader for a radio frequency identification (RFID) system is realized by providing a transmitter operable to generate an outbound radio frequency (RF) signal and a receiver operable to receive an inbound RF signal having a frequency similar to a frequency of the outbound RF signal on a single integrated circuit. Since the inbound RF signal may include not only a modulated RF signal produced by an RFID tag responsive to the outbound RF signal, but also a blocking signal corresponding to the outbound RF signal, the receiver additionally includes a block cancellation module operable to substantially cancel the blocking signal from the inbound RF signal using the outbound RF signal and to substantially pass the modulated RF signal before down-conversion of the modulated RF signal.